Banjo, a story without a plot

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OF FLORIDA

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BANJO

BANJO

zA Story without a "Plot

BY
CLAUDE McKAY

Author of

"HOME TO HARLEM"

HARPER 1$ BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK and LONDON

1929

BANJO

COPYRIGHT, I929, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

E-D

FIRST PRINTING, APRIL, 1 929
SECOND PRINTING, APRIL, 1 929

THIRD PRINTING, APRIL, 1 929

FOURTH PRINTING, APRIL, 1 929

FIFTH PRINTING, MAY, 1 929

For Ruthope

CONTENTS

FIRST PART

i The Bitch 3

11 The Breakwater 18

hi Malty Turned Down Tj

iv Hard Feeding 38

v "Jelly Roll" 45

SECOND PART

vi Meeting-up 61

vii The Flute-boy 83

viii A Carved Carrot 93

ix Taloufa*s Shirt-tail 101

x Story-telling 1 14

xi Everybody Doing It 133

xii Bugsy's Chinese Pie 148

xiii Bugsy Comes Back at Banjo 166

xiv Telling Jokes 177

xv White Terror 188

xvi The "Blue Cinema" 199

xvii Breaking-up 219

CONTENTS viii

THIRD PART

xviii Banjo's Return 227

xix Lonesome Blue Again 235

xx The Rock of Refuge 244

xxi Official Fists 256

xxii Reaction 269

xxiii Shake That Thing Again 280

xxiv The Chauffeur's Lot 285

xxv Banjo's Ace of Spades 301

FIRST PART

/. The Ditch

— — i— mmtttlllimllimmimm „

HEAVING along from side to side, like a sailor on
the unsteady deck of a ship, Lincoln Agrippa Daily,
familiarly known as Banjo, patrolled the mag-
nificent length of the great breakwater of Marseilles,
a banjo in his hand.

"It sure is some moh mahvelous job," he noted men-
tally; "most wonderful bank in the ocean I evah did see."

It was afternoon. Banjo had walked the long distance
of the breakwater and was returning to the Joliette end.
He wore a cheap pair of slippers, suitable to the climate,
a kind much used by the very poor of Provence. They
were an ugly drab-brown color, which, however, was
mitigated by the crimson socks and the yellow scarf
with its elaborate pattern of black, yellow, and red at
both ends, that was knotted around his neck and hung
down the front of his blue-jean shirt.

Suddenly he stood still in his tracks as out of the bot-
tom of one of the many freight cars along the quay he
saw black bodies dropping. Banjo knew box cars. He
had hoboed in America. But never had he come across
a box car with a hole in the bottom. Had those black
boys made it? He went down on the quay to see.

The fellows were brushing the hay off their clothes.
There were four of them.

"Hello, there I" said Banjo.

"Hello, money!" replied the tallest of the four, who
was just Banjo's build.

BANJO 4

"Good night, money. What I want to know is ef
you-all made that theah hole in the bottom a that box
car? I nevah yet seen no hole in the bottom of a box
car, and IVe rode some rails back home in the States."

"P'raps not. They's things ovah heah diffarant from
things ovah theah and they's things ovah theah diffarant
from things ovah heah. Now the way things am setting
with me, this heah hole-in-the-bottom box car is just the
thing for us."

"You done deliver you'self of a mouthful that sure
sounds perfect," responded Banjo.

"I always does. Got to use mah judgment all the
time with these fellahs heah. And you? What you
making foh you'self down here on the breakwater?"

"Ain't making a thing, but I know I'd sure love to
make a meal."

"A meal! You broke already?"

"Broke already? Yes I is, but what do you know
about it?" asked Banjo, sharply.

"Nothing in particular, ole spoht, cep'n' that I
bummed you two times when you was strutting with that
ofay broad and that Ise Malty Avis, the best drummer
on the beach. Mah buddies heah bummed you, too, so
if youse really broke and hungry as you say, which can
be true, 'causen you' lips am as pale as the belly of a
fish, just you come right along and eat ovah theah."
He pointed to a ramshackle bistro-restaurant on the
quay. "We got a little money between us. The bum-
ming was good last night."

"This is going some, indeed. I gived you a raise
yestidday and youse feeding me today," said Banjo as
they all walked toward the bistro. "I don't even re-
member none a you fellahs."

" 'Cause you was too swell dressed up and strutting

5 THE DITCH

fine with that broad to see anybody else," said the small-
est of the group.

They were all hungry. The boys had been sleeping,
and woke up with an appetite. Before them the woman
of the bistro set five plates of vegetable soup, a long
loaf of bread, followed by braised beef and plenty of
white beans. Malty called for five bottles of red wine.

Banjo got acquainted over the mess. The shining
black big-boned lad who bore such a contented expres-
sion on his plump jolly face and announced himself as
Malty Avis, was the leader and inspirer of the group.
His full name was Buchanan Malt Avis. He was a West
Indian. His mother had been a cook for a British mis-
sionary and from the labels of his case goods, for which
she had had a fondness, she had taken his Christian
names. The villagers dropped Buchanan and took Malt,
which they made Malty.

Malty's working life began as a small sailor boy on
fishing-boats in the Caribbean. When he became a big
boy he was taken by a cargo boat on his first real voyage
to New Orleans. From there he had started in as a
real seaman and had never returned home.

Sitting on Malty's right, the chestnut-skinned fellow
with drab-brown curly hair was called Ginger, a tribute
evidently, to the general impression of his make-up.
Whether you thought of ginger as a tuber in reddish
tropical soil, or as a preserved root, or as the Jamaica
liquid, it reminded you oddly of him. Of all the Eng-
lish-speaking Negro boys, Ginger held the long-term
record of existence on the beach. He had lost his sea-
man's papers. He had been in prison for vagabondage
and served with a writ of expulsion. But he had de-
stroyed the writ and swiped the papers of another
seaman.

Opposite Ginger was Dengel, also tall, but thin. He

BANJO 6

was a Senegalese who spoke a little English and pre-
ferred the company of Malty and his pals to that of
his countrymen.

Beside Dengel was the small, wiry, dull-black boy who
had sardonically reminded Banjo of his recent high-fly-
ing. He was always aggressive of attitude. The fel-
lows said that he was bughouse and he delighted in the
name of Bugsy that they gave him.

They were all on the beach, and there were many
others besides them — white men, brown men, black men.
Finns, Poles, Italians, Slavs, Maltese, Indians, Negroids,
African Negroes, West Indian Negroes — deportees
from America for violation of the United States immi-
gration laws — afraid and ashamed to go back to their
own lands, all dumped down in the great Provengal port,
bumming a day's work, a meal, a drink, existing from
hand to mouth, anyhow any way, between box car, tramp
ship, bistro, and bordel.

"But you ain't broke, man," Malty said, pointing to
the banjo, uwhen you got that theah bit a business.
Ain't a one of us here that totes around anything that
can bring a little money outa this burg a peddlers."

Banjo caressed his instrument. "I nevah part with
this, buddy. It is moh than a gal, moh than a pal; it's
mahself."

"You don't have to go hungry round here, either, ef
you c'n play a liT bit," drawled Ginger. "You c'n pick
up enough change foh you'self even as much to buy us
all a 11*1* red wine to wet our whistle when the stuff is
scarce down the docks — jest by playing around in them
bars in Joliette and uptown around the Bum Square."

"We'll see what this burg can stand," said Banjo.
"It ain't one or two times, but plenty, that mah steady
here did make me a raise when I was right down and
out. Oncet away back in Montreal, after I done lost

7 THE DITCH

every cent to mah name on the racetracks, I went into
one swell spohting-place and cleaned up twenty-five dol-
lars playing. But the best of all was the bird uvva time
I had in San Francisco with three buddies who hed a
guitar and a ukulele and a tambourine between them.
My stars ! I was living in clovah for six months."

"You'll make yours here, too," said Malty. "Al-
though this heah burg is lousy with pifformers, doing
their stuff in the cafes, it ain't often you come across
one that can turn out a note to tickle a chord in you'
apparatus. Play us a piece. Let us hear how you
sound."

"Not now," said Banjo. "Better tonight in some
cafe. Maybe they won't like it here."

"Sure they will. You c'n do any ole thing at any ole
time in this country."

"That ain't a damn sight true," Bugsy jumped sharply
in. "But you can play all the time," he said to Banjo.
"People will sure come and listen and the boss will get
rid a some moh of his rotten wine."

"This wine ain't so bad " Ginger began.

"It sure is," insisted Bugsy, whose palate had never
grown agreeable to vin rouge ordinaire. He drank with
the boys, as drinking played a big part in their group life,
but he preferred syrups to wine, and he was the soberest
among them.

"The wine outa them barrels we bung out on the
docks is much better," he declared.

"Why, sure it's better, you black blubberhead," ex-
claimed Ginger. "Tha's the real best stuff we make down
there. Pure and strong, with no water in it. That's
why we get soft on it quicker than when we drink in a
cafe. In all them little cafes the stuff is doctored. That's
the profit way."

Banjo played "Yes, sir, that's my baby." He said

BANJO 8

it was one of the pieces that were going wild in the
States. The boys began humming and swaying. What
Bugsy predicted happened. Some dockers who were
not working were drawn to the bistro. They seated them-
selves at a rough long table, across from the boys' by
the other side of the door, listened approvingly to the
music, drank wine, and spat pools.

Malty ordered more wine. Ginger and Bugsy stood
up to each other and performed a strenuous movement
of the "Black Bottom/' as they had learned it from
Negro seamen of the American Export Line. The
patrone came and stood in the door, very pleased, and
exhibited a little English, uGood piece you very well
play. . . ,»

Banjo played another piece, then suddenly stopped,
stood up and stretched his arms.

"You finish' already?" demanded Malty.

"Sure; it was just a little exhibition of my accom-
plishment foh your particular benefit."

"Youse as good a musician as a real artist."

"I is an artist."

The workmen regarded Banjo admiringly, drained
their glasses, and sauntered off.

"Imagine those cheap skates coming here jest to listen
to mah playing and not even offering a man a drink,"
Banjo sneered. "Why, ef I was in Hamburg or Genoa
they woulda sure drownded me in liquor."

"The Froggies am all tight that way," said Malty.
"They're a funny people. If you'd a taken up a collec-
tion every jack man a them woulda gived you a copper,
thinking that you make you' living that way "

"Hell with their coppers," said Banjo. "I expected
them to stand a round just for expreciation only of a
good thing."

"As for that, they ain't the treating kind a good fellahs

9 THE DITCH

that you and I am used to on the other side," said
Malty. . . .

From the bistro on the breakwater, the boys rocked
slowly along up to Joliette. Ginger had a favorite drink-
ing-place on the Rue Forbin, a dingy tramps' den. They
stopped there, drinking until twilight. Ginger and
Dengel became so staggeringly soft that they decided to
go back to the box car and sleep.

Malty said to Banjo and Bugsy, "Let's take our tail
up to the Bum Square."

The Place Victor Gelu of the Vieux Port was called by
the boys on the beach the "Bum Square" because it was
there they gathered at night to bum or panhandle sea-
men and voyagers who passed through to visit the Quar-
tier Reserve. The Quartier Reserve they called "the
Ditch" with the same rough affection with which they
likened their ship to an easy woman by calling it the
"broad."

Avoiding the populous Rue de la Republique, Malty,
Banjo, and Bugsy followed the little-frequented Boule-
vard de la Major, passing by the shadow of the big
cathedral and the gate of the Central Police Building,
to reach the Bum Square. They took two more rounds
of red wine on the way, the last in a little cafe in the
Place de Lenche before they descended to the Ditch.

Malty had a dinner engagement with a mulatto sea-
man from a boat of the American Export Line, whom
he was to meet in the Bum Square. The wine had worked
so hard on their appetites that all three were hungry
again. Malty looked in all the cafes of the square, but
did not find his man. A big blond fellow, his clothes
starched with dirt, was standing in the shadow of a palm,
looking sharply out for customers. Malty asked him if
he had seen his mulatto.

BANJO 10

"He went up that way with a tart," replied the blond,
pointing toward the Canebiere.

"Let's go and eat, anyway," Malty said to Banjo and
Bugsy. "I got some money yet."

"Latnah musta gived you an extry raise; she is always
handing you something," said Bugsy.

"I ain't seen her for ovah three days," replied Malty.

"Oh, you got a sweet mamma helping you on the side?"
Banjo asked, laughing.

"Not mine, boh," replied Malty. "Is jest a liT
woman bumming like us on the beach. I don't know
whether she is Arabian or Persian or Indian. She knows
all landwidges. I stopped a p-i from treating her rough
one day, and evah since she pals out with our gang,
nevah passing us without speaking, no matter ef she even
got a officer on the string, and always giving us English
and American cigarettes and a little change when she
got 'em. It's easy for her, you see, to penetrate any
place on a ship, when we can't, 'cause she's a skirt with
some legs all right, and her face ain't nothing that would
scare you."

"And none a you fellahs can't make her?" cried Banjo.
"Why you-all ain't the goods?"

"It ain't that, you strutting cock, but she treats us
all like pals and don't leave no ways open for that. Ain't
it better to have her as a pal than to lose out ovah a liT
crazy craving that a few sous can settle up here?"

They went up one of the humid, somber alleys, thick
with little eating-dens of all the Mediterranean peoples,
Greek, Jugo-Slav, Neapolitan, Arab, Corsican, and Ar-
menian, Czech and Russian.

When they had finished eating, Malty suggested that
they might go up to the gayer part of the Ditch. Bugsy
said he would go to the cinema to see Hoot Gibson in a
Wild West picture. But Banjo accepted the invitation

ii THE DITCH

with alacrity. Every chord in him responded to the
loose, bistro-love-life of the Ditch.

Banjo was a great vagabond of lowly life. He was a
child of the Cotton Belt, but he had wandered all over
America. His life was a dream of vagabondage that
he was perpetually pursuing and realizing in odd ways,
always incomplete but never unsatisfactory. He had
worked at all the easily-picked-up jobs — longshoreman,
porter, factory worker, farm hand, seaman.

He was in Canada when the Great War began and he
enlisted in the Canadian army. That gave him a glimpse
of London and Paris. He had seen a little of Europe
before, having touched some of the big commercial ports
when he was a husky fireman. But he had never arrived
at the sailor's great port, Marseilles. Twice he had been
to Genoa and once to Barcelona. Only those who know
the high place that Marseilles holds in the imagination
of seamen can get the feeling of his disappointment. All
through his seafaring days Banjo had dreamed dreams
of the seaman's dream port. And at last, because the
opportunity that he had long hoped for did not come
to take him there, he made it.

Banjo had been returned to Canada after the general
demobilization. From there he crossed to the States,
where he worked at several jobs. Seized by the old rest-
lessness for a sea change while he was working in an
industrial plant, he hit upon the unique plan of getting
himself deported.

Some of his fellow workmen who had entered the
United States illegally had been held for deportation,
and they were all lamenting that fact. Banjo, with his
unquenchable desire to be always going, must have
thought them very poor snivelers. They had all been
thunderstruck when he calmly announced that he was
not an American. Everything about him — accent, atti-

BANJO 12

tude, and movement — shouted Dixie. But Banjo had
insisted that his parentage was really foreign. He had
served in the Canadian army. . . . His declaration had
to be accepted by his bosses.

Banjo was a personality among the immigration offi-
cers. They liked his presence, his voice, his language
of rich Aframericanisms. They admired, too, the way
he had chosen to go off wandering again. (It was nothing
less than a deliberate joke to them, for Banjo could
never convince any American, especially a Southern-
knowing one, that he was not Aframerican.) It was
singular enough to stir their imagination, so long insensi-
ble to the old ways of ship desertion and stowing away.
The officials teased Banjo, asking him what he would
ever do in Europe when he spoke no other language than
straight Yankee. However, their manner betrayed their
feeling of confidence that Banjo would make his way
anywhere. He was given a chance to earn some money
across and they saw him go regretfully and hopefully,
when he signed up on the tramp that would eventually
land him at Marseilles.

Banjo's tramp was a casual one. So much so that it
was four months and nineteen days after sailing down
through the Panama Canal to New Zealand and Aus-
tralia, cruising cargo around the island continent and up
along the coast of Africa, before his dirty overworked
"broad" reached the port of Marseilles.

Banjo had no plan, no set purpose, no single object in
coming to Marseilles. It was the port that seamen
talked about — the marvelous, dangerous, attractive, big,
wide-open port. And he wanted only to get there.

Banjo was paid off in francs, and after changing a deck
of dollars that he had saved in America, he possessed
twelve thousand five hundred and twenty-five francs and

13 THE DITCH

some sous. He was spotted and beset by touting guides,
white, brown, black, all of them ready to show and sell
him everything for a trifle. He got rid of them all.

Banjo bought a new suit of clothes, fancy shoes, and
a vivid cache-col. He had good American clothes, but
he wanted to strut in Provencal style.

Instinctively he drifted to the Ditch, and as naturally
he found a girl there. She found a room for both of
them. Banjo's soul thrilled to the place — the whole life
of it that milled around the ponderous, somber building
of the Mairie, standing on the Quai du Port, where fish
and vegetables and girls and youthful touts, cats, mon-
grels, and a thousand second-hand things were all mingled
together in a churning agglomeration of stench and slimi-
ness.

His wonderful Marseilles! Even more wonderful to
him than he had been told. Unstintingly Banjo gave of
himself and his means to his girl and the life around him.
And when he was all spent she left him.

Now he was very light of everything: light of pocket,
light of clothing (having relieved himself at the hock
shop), light of head, feeling and seeing everything
lightly.

It was Banjo's way to take every new place and every
new thing for the first time in a hot crazy-drunk manner.
He was a type that was never sober, even when he was
not drinking. And now the first delirious fever days of
Marseilles were rehearsing themselves, wheeling round
and round in his head. The crooked streets of dim lights,
the gray damp houses bunched together and their rowdy
signs of many colors. The mongrel-faced guides of
shiny, beady eyes, patiently persuasive; the old hags at
the portals, like skeletons presiding over an orgy, with
skeleton smile and skeleton charm inviting in quavering

BANJO 14

accents those who hesitated to enter. Oh, his head was
a circus where everything went circling round and round.

Banjo had never before been to that bistro where
Malty was taking him. It had a player-piano and a place
in the rear for dancing. It was a rendezvous for most
of the English-speaking beach boys. If they were spend-
ing a night in the Vieux Port, they went there (after pan-
handling the Bum Square) for sausage sandwiches and
red wine. And when all their appetites were appeased,
they flopped together in a room upstairs.

The mulatto cook from the Export Line boat was
there, sitting between a girl and an indefinite Negroid
type of fellow. There were two bottles of wine and a
bottle of beer before them. The cook called Malty
and Banjo to his table and ordered more wine. There
were many girls from the Ditch and young touts dancing.
One of the girls asked Banjo to play. Another made
the mulatto dance with her. Banjo played "Yes, sir,
that's my baby." But as soon as he paused, a girl started
the player-piano. The banjo was not loud enough for
that close, noisy little market. Everybody was dancing.

Banjo put the instrument aside. It wasn't adequate
for the occasion. It would need an orchestry to fix them
right, he thought, good-humoredly. I wouldn't mind
starting one going in this burg. Gee ! That's the idea.
Tha's jest what Ise gwine to do. The American darky
is the performing fool of the world today. He's de-
manded everywhere. If I c'n only git some a these heah
panhandling fellahs together, we'll show them some real
nigger music. Then I'd be setting pretty in this heah
sweet dump without worrying ovah mah wants. That's
the stuff for a live nigger like me to put ovah, and no
cheap playing from cafe to cafe and a handing out mah
hat for a lousy sou.

i5 THE DITCH

He was so exhilarated with the thought of what he
would do that he felt like dancing. At that moment the
girl of his first Marseilles days came in with a young runt
of a tout. Banjo looked up at her, smiling expectantly.
She was still going round in his head with the rest of the
Ditch. She had left him, of course, but he had accepted
that as inevitable when he could no longer afford
her. Yet, he had mused, she might have been a little
extravagant and bestowed on him one spontaneous caress
over all that was bought. She had not. Because she only
knew one way — the way of the Ditch. She did not know
the way of a brown girl back home who could say with
sweet exaggeration: "Daddy, we two will go home and
spread joy and not wake up till next week sometime and
want nothing but loving."

Ah no ! Nothing so fancifully real. Nevertheless, she
was the first playmate of his dream port.

The girl, seeing Banjo, turned her eyes casually away
and went to sit where she could concentrate her charms
on the mulatto. Banjo had no further interest for her.
He had spent all his money and, like all the beach boys,
would never have more for a wild fling as long as he
remained in port. It was the mulatto that had brought
her there. For as soon as a new arrival enters any of
the dens of the Ditch, the girls are made aware of it by
the touts, who are always on the lookout. Banjo was
vexed. Hell! She might have been more cordial, he
thought. The player-piano was rattling out "Fleur
d'Amour." He would ask her to dance. Maybe her
attitude was only an insolent little exhibition of cattish-
iiess. He went over to her and asked, "Danser?"

"No," she said, disdainfully, and turned away. He
touched her shoulder playfully.

"Laissez-moi tranquil, imbecile " She spat nastily on
the floor.

BANJO 16

A rush of anger seized Banjo. "You pink sow!" he
cried. His eyes caught the glint of the gold watch he had
given to her, and wrenching it from her wrist, he
smashed it on the red-tiled floor and stamped his heel
upon it in a rage. The girl screamed agonizingly, wring-
ing her hands, her wide eyes staring tragically at the
remains of her watch. The little tout who had come in
with her leaped over at Banjo. "What is it? What is
it?" he cried, and hunching up his body and thrusting
his head up and out like a comic actor, he began working
his open hands up and down in Banjo's face, without
touching him. Banjo looked down upon the boy con-
temptuously and seized his left wrist, intending to twist
it and push him outside, for he could not think of fighting
with such an undersized antagonist. But in a flash the
boy drew a knife across his wrist and, released, dashed
through the door.

Banjo wrapped the cut in his handkerchief, but it was
soon soaked with blood. It was late. The pharmacies
were closed. The patrone of the bistro said that there
were pharmacies open all night. Malty took Banjo to
hunt for one.

As they were passing through the Bum Square a
woman's voice called Malty. They stopped and she
came up to them. She was a little olive-toned woman
of an indefinable age, clean-faced, not young and far
from old, with an amorous charm round her mouth. It
was Latnah.

"Ain't gone to bed yet?" Malty said to her. "Ise
got a case here." He exhibited Banjo's hand.

"It plenty bleed," she said. She looked at Banjo and
said, "I see you before around here."

Banjo grinned. "Maybe I seen you, too."

"I no think. Pharmacie no open now," she answered
Malty's question. Then she said to Banjo: "Come with

i7 THE DITCH

me. I see your hand. Tomorrow see you, Malty. Good
iiight." She took Banjo away, while Malty's eyes fol-
lowed them in a wistful, bewildered gaze.

She took Banjo back in the direction from which he
had come, but by way of the Quai du Port. After a
few minutes' walk they turned into one of the somber
side streets. They went into a house a little southwest
of the Ditch. Her room was on the top floor, a quaint,
tiny thing, the only one up there, and opened right on
the stairs. There was a little shutter-window, the size
of a Saturday Evening Post, that gave a view of the
Vieux Port, where the lights of the boats were twinkling.
A bright, inexpensive Oriental shawl covered the cot-
bed. On the table was a washbowl, two little jars of
cosmetics, and packets of different brands of cigarettes.

There was no water in the room, and Latnah went
down two flights of stairs to get a jugful. When she
returned she washed Banjo's wound, then, getting a bot-
tle of liquid from a basket against the foot of the cot,
she anointed and bandaged it.

Banjo liked the woman's gentle fussing over him. He
thanked her when she had finished. "Rien du tout,"
she replied. There was a little silence between them,
slightly embarrassing but piquant.

Then Banjo said: "I wonder whereat I can find Malty
now? I didn't have a room yet for tonight."

uYou sleep here," she said, simply.

He undressed while she found something to do — empty
the washbowl, wipe the table, and when at last he caught
a glimpse of her between her deshabille and the covers
he murmured softly to himself: "Don't care how I falls,
may be evah so long a drop, but it's always on mah feets."

II. The Breakwater

THE quarter of the old port exuded a nauseating
odor of mass life congested, confused, moving
round and round in a miserable suffocating circle.
Yet everything there seemed to belong and fit naturally
in place. Bistros and love shops and girls and touts and
vagabonds and the troops of dogs and cats — all seemed
to contribute so essentially and colorfully to that vague
thing called atmosphere. No other setting could be more
appropriate for the men on the beach. It was as if all
the derelicts of all the seas had drifted up here to sprawl
out the days in the sun.

The men on the beach spent the day between the break-
water and the docks, and the night between the Bum
Square and the Ditch. Most of the whites, especially
the blond ones of northern countries, seemed to have
gone down hopelessly under the strength of hard liquor,
as if nothing mattered for them now but that. They
were stinking-dirty, and lousy, without any apparent de-
sire to clean themselves. With the black boys it was
different. It was as if they were just taking a holiday.
They were always in holiday spirit, and if they did not
appear to be specially created for that circle, they did
not spoil the picture, but rather brought to it a rich and
careless tone that increased its interest. They drank
wine to make them lively and not sodden, washed their
bodies and their clothes on the breakwater, and some-

18

i9 THE BREAKWATER

times spent a panhandled ten-franc note to buy a second-
hand pair of pants.

Banjo had become a permanent lodger at Latnah's.
His wound was not serious, but it was painful and had
given him a light fever. Latnah told him that when his
wrist was well enough for him to play, she would go
with him to perform in some of the bars of the quarter
and take up a collection.

In the daytime Latnah went off by herself to her busi-
ness, and sometimes the nature of it detained her over-
night and she did not get back to her room. Banjo spent
most of his time with Malty's gang. He was not alto-
gether one of them, but rather a kind of honorary mem-
ber, having inspired respect by his sudden conquest of
Latnah and by being an American.

An American seaman (white or black) on the beach
is always treated with a subtle difference by his beach
fellows. He has a higher face value than the rest. His
passport is worth a good price and is eagerly sought for
by passport fabricators. And he has the assurance that,
when he gets tired of beaching, his consulate will help
him back to the fabulous land of wealth and opportunity.

Banjo dreamed constantly of forming an orchestra, and
the boys listened incredulously when he talked about it.
He had many ideas of beginning. If he could get two
others besides himself he could arrange with the pro-
prietor of some cafe to let them play at his place. That
might bring in enough extra trade to pay them something.
Or he might make one of the love shops of the Ditch
unique and famous with a black orchestra.

One day he became very expansive about his schemes
under the influence of wine-drinking on the docks. This
was the great sport of the boys. They would steal a
march on the watchmen or police, bung out one of the big

BANJO 20

casks, and suck up the wine through rubber tubes until
they were sweetly soft.

Besides Banjo there were Malty, Ginger, and Bugsy.
After they had finished with the wine, they raided a huge
heap of peanuts, filled up their pockets, and straggled
across the suspension bridge to lie in the sun on the
breakwater.

"I could sure make one a them dumps look like a
real spohting-place,', said Banjo, "with a few of us nig-
gers piff orming in theah. Lawdy ! but the chances there
is in a wide-open cat town like this ! But everybody is so
hoggish after the sous they ain't got no imagination left
to see big money in a big thing "

"It wasn't a big thing that dat was put ovah on you,
eh?" sniggered Bugsy.

"Big you' crack," retorted Banjo. "That theah wasn't
nothing at all. Ain't nobody don't put anything ovah on
me that I didn't want in a bad way to put ovah mahself.
I like the looks of a chicken-house, and I ain't nevah had
no time foh the business end ovit. But when I see how
these heah poah ole disabled hens am making a hash of a
good thing with a gang a cheap no-'count p-i's, I just
imagine what a high-yaller queen of a place could do ovah
heah turned loose in this sweet clovah. Oh, boy, with a
bunch a pinks and yallers and chocolates in between, what
a show she could showem!"

"It's a tall lot easier talking than doing," said Bugsy.
"Theyse some things jest right as they is and ain't nevah
was made foh making better or worser. Now sup-
posing you was given a present of it, what would you
make outa one a them joints in Boody Lane?"

Boody Lane was the beach boys' name for the Rue
de la Bouterie, the gut of the Ditch.

"Well, that's a forthrightly question and downrightly
hard to answer," said Banjo. "For I wasn't inclosing

21 THE BREAKWATER

them in mah catalogory, becausen they ain't real places,
brother; them's just stick-in-the-mud holes. Anyway, if
one was gived to me I'd try everything doing excep'n'
lighting it afire."

At this they all laughed. "Don't light it afire" was
the new catch phrase among the beach boys and they
passed it on to every new seaman that was introduced
to the Ditch. When the new man, curious, asked the
meaning, they replied, laughing mysteriously, "Because
it is six months."

The phrase was the key to the story of an American
brown boy who went on shore leave and would not keep
company with any of his comrades. At the Vieux Port
he was besieged by the black beach boys, but he refused
to give them anything and told them that they ought to
be ashamed to let down their race by scavengering on
the beach. When he started to go up into the Ditch
the boys warned him that it was dangerous to go alone.
He went alone, replying that he did not want the advice
or company of bums.

He went proud and straight into one of the stick-in-
the-mud places of Boody Lane. And before he could get
out, his pocketbook with his roll of dollars was missing.
He accused the girl by signs. She replied by signs and
insults that he had not brought the pocketbook there.
She mentioned "police" and left the box. He thought
she had gone to get the police to help him find his money.
But he waited and waited, and when she did not return,
realizing that he had been tricked, he struck a match
and set the bed on fire. That not only brought him the
police, but also the fire brigade and six months in prison,
where he was now cooling himself.

Ginger said: "I ain't no innovation sort of a fellah.
When I make a new beach all I want is to make mah
way and not make no changes. Just make mah way

BANJO 22

somehow while everything is going on without me study-
ing them or them studying me."

He was lying flat on his back on one of the huge stone
blocks of the breakwater. The waves were lapping
softly around it. He had no shirt on and, unfastening
the pin at the collar of his old blue coat, he flung it back
and exposed his brown belly to the sun. His trousers
waist was pulled down below his navel. "Oh, Gawd, the
sun is sweet I" he yawned and, pulling his cap over his
eyes, went to sleep. The others also stretched themselves
and slept.

Along the great length of the breakwater other care-
less vagabonds were basking on the blocks. The day was
cooling off and the sun shed down a warm, shimmering
glow where the light fell full on the water. Over by
l'Estaque, where they were extending the port, a P. L. M.
coal ship stood black upon the blue surface. The fac-
tories loomed on the long slope like a rusty-black mass
of shapes strung together, and over them the bluish-
gray hills were bathed in a fine, delicate mist, and further
beyond an immense phalanx of gray rocks, the inex-
haustible source of the cement industry, ran sharply
down into the sea.

Sundown found the boys in the Place de la Joliette.
In one of the cafes they found a seaman from Zanzibar
among some Maltese, from whom they took him away.

"Wese just in time for you," Malty declared. "What
youse looking for is us. Fellahs who speak the same as
you speak and not them as you kain't trust who mix up
the speech with a mess of Arabese. Them's a sort of
bastard Arabs, them Maltese, and none of us likes them,
much less trusts them."

The new man was very pleased to fall in with fellows
as friendly as Banjo and Malty. He was on a coal boat
from South Shields and had a few pounds on him. He

23 THE BREAKWATER

was generous and stood drinks in several cafes. From
the Place de la Joliette, they took the quiet way of the
Boulevard de la Major to reach the Ditch. It was the
best way for the beach boys. Some of them had not the
proper papers to get by the police and tried to evade
them always. By way of the main Rue de la Republique
they were more likely to be stopped, questioned, searched,
and taken to the police station. Sometimes they were
told that their papers were not in order, but they were
only locked up for a night and let out the next morning.
Some of them complained of being beaten by the police.
Ginger thought the police were getting more brutal and
strict, quite different from what they were like when he
first landed on the beach. Then they could bung out
a cask of wine in any daring old way and drink without
being bothered. Now it was different. It was not
very long since two fellows from the group had got two
months each for wine-stealing. Happily for them, Malty,
Ginger, and Bugsy all had passable papers.

On the way to the Ditch they stopped in different
bistros to empty in each a bottle of red wine. These
fellows, who were used to rum in the West Indies, gin
and corn liquor in the States, and whisky in England,
took to the red wine of France like ducks to water. They
never had that terribly vicious gin or whisky drunk. They
seemed to have lost all desire for hard liquor. When they
were drunk it was always a sweetly-soft good-natured
wine drunk.

They had a big feed in one of the Chinese restaurants
of the Rue Torte. The new man insisted on paying for it
all. After dinner they went to a little cafe on the Quai
du Port for coffee-and-rum. The newcomer took a mouth
organ from his pocket and began playing. This stimu-
lated Banjo, who said, "I guess mah hand c'n do its

BANJO 24

stuff again," and so he went up to Latnah's room and
got his banjo.

They went playing from little bistro to bistro in the
small streets between the fish market and the Bum Square.
They were joined by others — a couple of Senegalese and
some British West Africans and soon the company was
more than a dozen. They were picturesquely conspicuous
as they loitered along, talking in a confused lingo of Eng-
lish, French, and native African. And in the cafes the
bottles of beer and wine that they ordered and drank
indiscriminately increased as their number increased. Cus-
tomers were attracted by the music, and the girls, too,
who were envious and used all their wiles to get away the
newly arrived seaman from the beach boys. . . .

"Hot damn!" cried Banjo. "What a town this heah
is to spread joy in!"

"And you sure did spread yours all at once," retorted
Bugsy. "Burn it up in one throw and finish, you did."

"Muzzle you' mouf, nigger," replied Banjo. "The
joy stuff a life ain't nevah finished for this heah strutter.
When I turn mahself loose for a big wild joyful jazz a
life, you can bet you' sweet life I ain't gwine nevah
regretting it. Ise got moh joy stuff in mah whistle than
you're got in you' whole meager-dawg body."

"And I wouldn't want to know," said Bugsy.

At midnight they were playing in one of the cafes of
the Bum Square, when an oldish man came in wearing
faded green trousers, a yellowy black-bordered jacket,
with a wreath of flowers around his neck and began to
dance. He manipulated a stick with such dexterity that
it seemed as if his wrist was moving round like a wheel,
and he jigged and hopped from side to side with amaz-
ing agility while Banjo and the seaman played.

When they stopped, the garlanded dancer said he
would bet anybody a bottle of vin blanc superieur that

25 THE BREAKWATER

he could stand on his head on a table. A youngster in
proletarian blue made a sign against his head and said of
the old fellow, "// est fada" And the old man did in-
deed look a little mad in his strange costume and graying
hair, and it seemed unlikely that his bones could support
him in the feat that he proclaimed he could perform.
But nobody took up the bet.

Somebody translated what was what to the new sea-
man, who said, carelessly, "May as well bet and have a
little fun outa him."

"Tres bien," said the old man. He made several at-
tempts at getting headdown upon the table and failed
funnily, like professional acrobats in their first trials on
the stage, and the cafe resounded with peals of laughter
and quickly filled up. Suddenly the old fellow cried:
"Ca v est!" and spread his hands out, balancing himself
straight up on his head on the table. In a moment he
jumped down and, twisting his stick and executing some
steps, went round with his hat and took up a collection
before the crowd diminished. The beach boys threw in
their share of sous and the seaman promptly paid for
the bottle of white wine. The old man took it and left
the cafe, followed by a woman.

Latnah, passing through the Bum Square and seeing
Banjo playing, had entered the cafe just when the old
man stopped dancing and asked who would take up his
bet. The good collection he took up and the bottle of
wine in addition awakened all her instincts of acquisitive-
ness and envious rivalry. She turned on Banjo.

"All that money man take and gone is you' money.
You play and he take money. You too proud to ask
money and you no have nothing. You feel rich, maybe."

"Leave me be, woman," said Banjo.

"And you make friend pay wine for man. Man make

BANJO ib

nothing but bluff. You colored make the white fool you
all time "

"I didn't tell him to bet nothing. But even then, what
is a little lousy bet? Gawd bless mah soul! The money
I done bet in my life and all foh big stakes on them race
tracks in Montreal. What do you-all know about life
and big stakes?" Banjo waved his hand in a tipsy sweep
as if he saw the old world of race-track bettors before
him.

"This no Montreal; this Marseilles, " replied Latnah,
"and you very fool to play for nothing. You need
money, you bitch-commer "

"Now quit you' noise. Ise going with you, but I ain't
gwine let you ride me. Get me? No woman nevah ride
me yet and you ain't gwine to ride me, neither."

He stood up, resting the banjo on a table.

"And it not me doing the riding, I'm sure," said
Latnah.

"Come on, fellahs; let's get outa this. Let's take our
hump away from here," said Banjo.

III. Malty Turned Down

BANJO had taken Latnah as she came, easily. It
seemed the natural thing to him to fall on his
feet, that Latnah should take the place of the
other girl to help him now that he needed help. What-
ever happened, happened. Life for him was just one
different thing of a sort following the other.

Malty was more emotional and amorously gentle than
Banjo. He was big, strong, and jolly-natured, and every-
body pronounced him a good fellow. He had made it
easy for the gang to accept Latnah, when she came to
them different from the girls of the Ditch. But there
was just the shadow of a change in the manner of the
gang toward her since she had taken up steadily with
Banjo.

"Some of us nevah know when wese got a good thing,"
said Malty to Banjo as they sat up on the breakwater,
waiting to be signaled to lunch on a ship. "I think youse
the kind a man that don't appreciate a fust-rate thing
because he done got it too easy."

"Ise a gone-fool nigger with any honey-sweet mamma,"
replied Banjo, "but I ain't gwina bury mah head under
no woman's skirt and let her cackle ovah me."

"All that bellyaching about a skirt," retorted Malty.
"We was all made and bohn under it."

Banjo laughed and said: "Easy come, easy go. Tha's
the life-living way. We got met up easy and she's taking
it easy, and Ise taking it easy, too."

27

BANJO 28

A black seaman came on deck and signaled them.
They hurried down from the breakwater and up the
gangway.

Latnah was the first woman that Malty and his pals
had ever met actually on the beach. Malty first became
aware of her one day on the deck of a ship from which
he and Bugsy and Ginger had been driven by a Negro
steward.

"G'way from here, you lazy no-'count bums," the
steward had said. "I wouldn't even give you-all a bone
to chew on. Instead a gwine along back to work, you
lay down on the beach a bumming mens who am trying
to make a raspactable living. You think if you-all lay
down sweet and lazy in you' skin while we others am
wrastling with salt water, wese gwine to fatten you moh
in you' laziness? G'way from this heah white man's
broad nigger bums."

The boys were very hungry. For some days they
had been eating off a coal boat with a very friendly crew.
But it had left the moorings and anchored out in the
bay, and now they could not get to it. Irritated, but
rather amused by the steward's onslaught, they shuffled
off from the ship a little down the quay. But Malty
happened to look behind him and see Latnah waving.
He went back with his pals and they found a mess of
good food waiting for them. Latnah had spoken in their
behalf, and one of the mates had told the chief steward
to feed them.

The boys saw her often after that. They met her at
irregular intervals in the Bum Square and down the
docks. One day on the docks she got into a row with
one of the women who sold fancy goods on the boats.
The woman was trying to tempt one of the mates into
buying a fine piece of Chinese silk, but the mate was more
tempted by Latnah.

29 MALTY TURNED DOWN

"Go away from me," the mate said. "I don't want a
bloody thing you've got."

The woman was angry, but such rebuffs were not
strange to her. To carry on her business successfully
she had to put up with them. She had seen at once that
the officer was interested in Latnah, and in passing she
swung her valise against Latnah's side.

"Oh, you stupid woman!" cried Latnah, holding her
side.

"You dirty black whore," returned the woman.

"You bigger white whore," retorted Latnah. "I know
you sell everything you've got. I see you on ship." And
Latnah pulled open her eye at the woman and made a
face.

Later, when Latnah left the ship, she again met the
woman with her man on the dock. The man was a slim
tout-like type, and he tried to rough-handle Latnah.
But Malty happened along then and bounced the fellow
with his elbow and said, "Now what you trying to do
with this woman?" The man muttered something in a
language unfamiliar to Malty and slunk off with his
woman. He hadn't understood what Malty had said,
either, but his bounce and menacing tone had been clear
enough.

"I glad you come," said Latnah to Malty. "I thank
you plenty, plenty, for if you no come I would been in
big risk. I would stick him."

She slipped from her bosom a tiny argent-headed
dagger, exquisitely sharp-pointed, and showed it to Malty.
He recoiled with fear and Latnah laughed. A razor or a
knife would not have touched him strangely. But a
dagger! It was as if Latnah had produced a serpent
from her bosom. It was not an instrument familiar to
his world, his people, his life. It reminded him of the

BANJO 30

strange, fierce, fascinating tales he had heard of Oriental
strife and daggers dealing swift death.

Suddenly another side of Latnah was revealed to him
and she stood out more clearly, different from the strange
creature of quick gestures and nimble body who pan-
handled the boats and brought them gifts of costly
cigarettes. She was different from the women of his
race. She laughed differently, quietly, subtly. The
women of his race could throw laughter like a clap of
thunder. And their style, the movement of their hips,
was like that of fine, vigorous, four-footed animals. Lat-
nah's was gliding like a serpent. But she stirred up a
powerfully sweet and strange desire in him.

She made him remember the Indian coolies that he
had known in his West Indian Island when he was a
boy. They were imported indentured laborers and
worked on the big sugar plantation that bordered on his
seaside village. The novelty of their strangeness never
palled on the village. The men with their turbans and
the loin-cloths that the villagers called coolie-wrapper.
The women weighted down with heavy silver bracelets
on arms, neck and ankles, their long glossy hair half
hidden by the cloth that the natives called coolie-red.
Perhaps they had unconsciously influenced the Negroes
to retain their taste for bright color and ornaments that
the Protestant missionaries were trying to destroy.

Every 1st of August, the great native holiday, anni-
versary of the emancipation of the British West Indian
slaves in 1834, the Negroes were joined by some Indians
in their sports on the playground. The Indians did ath-
letic stunts and sleight-of-hand tricks, such as unwinding
yards of ribbon out of their mouths, cleverly making
coins disappear and finding them in the pockets of the
natives, and fire-eating.

Some of the Indians were regarded as great workers

31 MALTY TURNED DOWN

in magic. The Negroes believed that Indian magic was
more powerful than their Obeah. Certain Indians had
given up the laborious hoeing and digging of plantation
work to practice the black art among the natives. And
they were much more influential and prosperous than the
Negro doctors of Obeah.

The two peoples did not mix in spite of the friendly
contact. There were, however, rare instances of Indians
who detached themselves from their people and became
of the native community by marrying Negro women.
But the Indian women remained more conservative.
Malty remembered one striking exception of a beautiful
Indian girl. She went to the Sunday-evening class that
was conducted by the wife of the Scotch missionary. And
she became a convert to Christianity and was married
to the Negro schoolmaster.

He also remembered a little Indian girl who was for
some time in his class at grade school. Her skin was
velvet, smooth and dark like mahogany. She was the
cleverest child in the class, but always silent, unsmiling,
and mysterious. He had never forgotten her.

Malty' s boyhood memories undoubtedly played a part
in his conduct toward Latnah. He could not think of
her as he did about the women of the Ditch. He felt
as if he had long lost sight of his exotic, almost forgot-
ten schoolmate, to find her become a woman on the cos-
mopolitan shore of Marseilles.

After her encounter with the peddling woman, Latnah
attached herself more closely to the beach boys. Maybe
(not being a woman of the Ditch, with a tout to fight
for her) she felt insecure and wanted to belong to a
group or maybe it was just her woman's instinct to
be under the protection of man. She was accepted. With
their wide experience and passive philosophy of life,

BANJO 32

beach boys are adepts at meeting, understanding, and ac-
cepting everything.

Latnah was following precisely the same line of living
as they. She came as a pal. She was made one of them.
Whatever personal art she might use as a woman to
increase her chances was her own affair. Their luck
also depended primarily on personality. Often they trav-
eled devious and separate routes in pursuit of a ''hand-
out," and sometimes had to wander into strange culs-de-
sac to obtain it. It did not matter if Latnah was not
inclined to be amorous with any of them. Perhaps it
was better so. She was more useful to them as a pal.
Love was cheap in the Ditch. It cost only the price of
a bottle of red wine among the "leetah" girls, as the
beach boys called the girls of Boody Lane, because their
short-time value was fixed at about the price of a liter
of cheap red wine.

Malty had wanted Latnah for himself. But she had
never given him any chance. She remained just one of
the gang.

The boys were rather flattered that she stayed with
them and shunned the Arab-speaking men, with whom
she was identified by language and features. When
Banjo arrived at Marseilles, Latnah's place on her own
terms among the boys was a settled thing. But when,
falling in love with Banjo at first sight, she took him as
her lover, they were all surprised and a little piqued.
And the latent desire in Malty was stirred afresh.

After their lunch, Banjo and Malty went across the
suspension bridge to the docks on the other side. They
were joined by Dengel, who approached them rocking
rhythmically, now pausing a moment to balance himself
in his tracks. He was much blacker than Malty, a shining
anthracite. And his face was moist and his large eyes
soft with liquor.

33 MALTY TURNED DOWN

Dengel was always in a state of heavenly inebriety;
sauntering along in a soft mist of liquor. He was never
worried about food. The joy of his being was the wine
of the docks. He always knew of some barrel conveniently
placed that could be raided without trouble.

"Come drink wine," he said, "if you like sweet wine.
We find one barrel, good, good, very sweet."

Banjo and Malty followed him. In a rather obscure
position against a freight car they found Ginger and
Bugsy and three Senegalese armed with rubber tubes
and swilling and swaying over a barrel of sweet wine.
Malty got his tube out of the knapsack that he always
toted with him, and Ginger handed Banjo his. Banjo
bent over the barrel, spreading his feet away the better
to imbibe. He was a long time sucking up the stuff.
And when he removed his mouth from the tube, he
brought up a long rich and ripe sound from belly to
throat, smacked his lips, and droned, "Gawd in glory,
ef this baby ain't some sweet boozing !"

"Tell it to Uncle Sam," said Bugsy.

"Tell it and shout nevah no moh," added Ginger.

"Nevah no moh is indeed mah middle name," said
Banjo, "but brown me ef I'm a telling-it-too-much kind
a darky. I ain't got no head for remembering too much
back, nor no tongue for long-suffering delivery. I'm
just a right-there, right-here baby, yestiday and today
and tomorraw and forevah. All right-there right-here
for me now."

"Hallelujah! Lemme crown you. You done said a
mou'ful a nigger stuff," said Ginger.

After they had quenched their craving they returned
to the far, little-frequented end of the breakwater and
lay lazily in the sun. There Latnah, her morning's
hustling finished, found them. Her yellow blouse was
soiled and she slipped it off and began washing it. That

BANJO 34

was a sign for the boys to clean up. All except Deng^l,
the only Senegalese that had crossed over to the break-
water; he was feeling too sweet in his skin for any
exertion. The boys stripped to the waist and began to
wash their shirts. Bugsy went down between two cement
blocks and brought up a can he had secreted there with
a hunk of white soap. Finished washing, they spread
the clothes on the blocks. Soon the vertical burning rays
of the sun would suck them dry.

Malty suggested that they should swim. The beach
boys often bathed down the docks, making bathing-suits
of their drawers. And sometimes, when they had the
extreme end of the breakwater to themselves, they went
in naked. They did this time, cautioning Dengel to keep
watch for them.

Latnah went in too. Malty was the best swimmer.
He made strong crawl strokes. He was also an excellent
diver. When he was a boy in the West Indies, he used to
dive from the high deck railings for the coins that the
tourists threw into the water. When he got going about
wharf life in the West Indian ports of Kingston, Santi-
ago, Port of Spain, he told stories of winning dollar bills
in competition with other boys diving for coins from the
bridges of ships. Of how he would struggle under
water against another boy while the coin was whirling
down away from them. How the cleverest boy would
get it or both lose it when they could not stay down
under any longer and came up breathless, blowing a
multitude of bubbles.

Latnah was a beautiful diver and shot graceful like
a serpent through the water. A thrill shivered through
Malty's blood. He had never dreamed that her body
was so lovely, limber, and sinewy. He dived down un-
der her and playfully caught at her feet. She kicked
him in the mouth, and it was like the shock of a kiss

35 MALTY TURNED DOWN

wrestled for and stolen, flooding his being with a rush of
sweetly-warm sensation.

Latnah swam away and, hoisting herself upon a block,
she gamboled about like a gazelle. Malty and Banjo
started to swim round to her, bantering and beating up
heaps of water, with Malty leading, when Dengel called:
"Attention! Police!" His sharp native eye had dis-
cerned two policemen far away up the eastern side of the
breakwater, cycling toward them. The swimmers dashed
for their clothes.

In a few moments the policemen rode down and,
throwing a perfunctory glance at the half-dressed bath-
ers, they circled round and went off again. "Salauds!"
Dengel said. "Always after us, but scared of the real
criminals."

For the rest of the afternoon they basked in the sun
on the breakwater. With its cooling they returned to
the Place de la Joliette, where the group broke up to
forage separately for food.

They came together again in the evening in a rendez-
vous bar of a somber alley, just a little bit out of the
heart of the Ditch. Banjo had his instrument and was
playing a little saccharine tune that he had brought over
from America :

"I wanna go where you go, do what you do,
Love when you love, then I'll be happy. . . ."

The souvenir of Latnah's foot in his mouth was a
warm fever in Malty's flesh. And the red wine that he
was drinking turned the fever sweet. It was a big night.
The barkeeper, a thin Spanish woman, was busy setting
up quart bottles of wine on the tables. Only black
drinkers filled the little bar, and their wide-open, humor-
ous, frank white eyes lighted up the place more glow-
ingly than the dirty dim electric flare.

BANJO 36

Senegalese, Sudanese, Somalese, Nigerians, West In-
dians, Americans, blacks from everywhere, crowded to-
gether, talking strange dialects, but, brought together,
understanding one another by the language of wine.

"I'll follow you, sweetheart, and share your little love-nest.
I wanna go where you go . . ."

Malty had managed to get next to Latnah, and put
his arm round her waist so quietly that it was some mo-
ments before she became aware of it. Then she tried to
remove his arm and ease away, but he pressed against
her thigh.

"Don't," she said. "I no like."

"What's the matter?" murmured Malty, thickly.
"Kaint you like a fellah a liT bit?"

He pressed closer against her and said, "Gimmie a
kiss."

She felt his strong desire. "Cochon, no. Go away
from me." She dug him sharply in the side with her
elbow.

"You' mout' it stink. I wouldn't kiss a slut like you,"
said Malty, and he got up and gave Latnah a hard push.

She fell off the bench and picked herself up, crying.
She was not hurt by the fall, but by Malty's sudden
change of attitude. Malty glowered at her boozily.
Banjo stopped playing, went up to him, and shook his
fist in his face.

"Wha's matter you messing around mah woman?"

"Go chase you'self. I knowed her long before you
did, when she was running after me."

"You're a dawggone liar!"

"And youse another!"

"Ef it's a fight youse looking for, come on outside."

Banjo and Malty staggered off. At the door, Malty
stumbled and nearly fell, and Banjo caught his arm and

37 MALTY TURNED DOWN

helped him into the street. All the boys crowded to
the door and flowed out into the alley, to watch. The
antagonists sparred. Malty hiccoughed ominously,
swayed forward, and, falling into Banjo's arms, they
both went down heavily, in a helpless embrace, on the
paving-stones.

IV. Hard Feeding

THE boys had a canny ear for the sounds of "good"
ships. They knew them by the note of the horns.
They might be bunging out a barrel of wine, or pick-
ing up peanuts, or lying on the breakwater when one of
the good ships (ships whose crews were friendly and
gave the beach boys food) signaled its coming in. One
would shout, tossing his cap into the air, "Oh, boy! That
theah's a regular broad coming in !" And it would surely
be one of their ships.

Sometimes it would be a ship that one of them saw
last in Pernambuco, or the ship that another had allowed
to leave him in Casablanca. Three months, six months,
a year, two years since any of the crew had met this
beach boy. Indescribably happy surprise reunions, and
stories reminiscent of how they got messed up with wine,
girls, and police and missed their ships.

Ginger's little story was brought out by one of these
meetings. And for a while it made him "Lights-out"
Ginger and the butt of the boys until another incident
superseded it. Ginger had often mentioned that he had
lost quite a bit of money in Marseilles in one night, but
nobody knew just how. Then he met the pal who had
been with him on the boat he had left and it all came
out. In a bistro by the breakwater, over a table loaded
with red wine, the story was told of Ginger's going into
one of the little houses of amusement in the Ditch. He
was boozy and very happy, singing and swaying. He

38

29 HARD FEEDING

sang, "Money is no object. I'll pay for anything in the
place." And he paid. He did it with great gusto, was
really amusing, and all the girls and touts and the other
customers were delighted.

There was a little mangy-faced white there who could
make himself intelligible in English. And he said to
Ginger, "The whole house is yours."

"I know it," Ginger grinned back, "and I'll show it.
I'll give this here money to the boss ef she puts the
lights out for five minutes." And he waved a thousand-
franc note. The patrone's eyes popped fire.

"Why, you big stiff," said the boy who told the story
and who had been with Ginger, "that's a whole lot a
money and tha's all youse got."

"Don't I know what Ise doing?" cried Ginger. "Ise
one commanding nigger who'll always pay for a show."

"You can have you' show, but Ise sure gwine away
from here, leaving you." And he left.

Ginger paid for his five-minute show and got all of
it. Nor did he rejoin his pal, but remained on the beach
to become a bum and a philosopher. Bantered as a
scholar by the boys, Ginger always had a special opinion,
a little ponderous, to give on topics arising among them.
And whenever they were up against any trouble, he al-
ways advised taking the line of least resistance.

Ginger laughed with the rest when his story was told,
and said: "There ain't a jack man of us that ain't got
a history to him as good as any that evah was printed.
And Ise one that ain't got no case against life."

Ginger's former pal was now again in Marseilles, for
the third time since Ginger had fallen for the beach.
And the beach boys were invited to his ship to lunch.
The galley of that ship was Negro and it was one of the
best of "good" ships.

Banjo went along with Malty and company. He

BANJO 4o

was not a regular panhandler like the other boys. He
could not make a happy business of it like them. Be-
cause sometimes they were savagely turned down and
insulted and he was not the type to stand that. He
would have gone to work on the docks, as he had in-
tended at first when he went broke, if his personality and
his banjo had not fixed him in a situation more favorable
than that of his mates. There was always a pillow for
his head at Latnah's, and when he played in any of the
bistros of the quarter and she was there, she always took
up a collection. Indeed, she collected every time Banjo
finished a set of tunes. That was the way the white
itinerants did it, she said. They never played for fun
as Banjo was prone to do. They played in a hard, un-
smiling, funereal way and only for sous. Which was
doubtless why their playing in general was so execrable.
When Banjo turned himself loose and wild playing, he
never remembered sous. Perhaps he could afford to
forget, however, with Latnah looking out for him and
always ready with a ten-franc note whenever his palm
was itching for small change.

The ship of Ginger's pal had such a beach-known repu-
tation for handing out the eats that, besides Malty and
company, other men of the beach, white and colored, had
assembled down by it to feed. Some dozen of them.

When the officers and men had finished eating, Ginger's
old friend brought out what was left to the hungry
group waiting on the deck. Good food and plenty of it
in two pans. Thick, long slices of boiled beef, immense
whole boiled potatoes, pork and beans, and lettuce.

All the men rushed the food like swine, each roughly
elbowing and snapping at the other to get his hand in
first. While they were stuffing themselves, smacking,
grunting, and blowing with the disgusting noises of

4i HARD FEEDING

brutes, the food all over their faces, a mess boy brought
out a large broad pan half filled with sweet porridge and
set it down on the deck. Immediately the porridge was
stormed. A huge blond Nordic, who looked like a polar
bear that had been rolling in mud, was tripped up by an
Armenian and fell sprawling, his lousy white head flop-
ping in the pan of porridge. The blond picked him-
self up and, burying his greasy-black hand in the por-
ridge, he brought up a palmful and dashed it in the face
of the Armenian. That started a free fight in which the
pan of porridge was kicked over, whole boiled potatoes
went flying across the deck, and Bugsy seized the mo-
ment to slap in the face with a slice of beef a boy from
Benin whom he hated.

"Goodoh Bugsy!" cried Malty. "Tha's sho some moh
feeding his face."

Banjo was standing a little way off, watching the
melee in anger and contempt. A lanky, prematurely-
wrinkle-faced officer passed by with a sneering glance at
the beach fellows and went to the galley. The cook, a
well-fleshed broad-chested brown Negro, came out on the
deck.

"You fellahs am sure a bum lot," he said. "The vict-
uals I done give you is too good foh you-all. The gar-
bage even is too good. You ain't no good foh nothing
at all."

But the boys were again eating, picking up potatoes
and scraps of meat from the deck and scooping up what
was left of the porridge.

Banjo had started for the gangway, and Bugsy called
to him, "Hi, nigger, ain't you gwine put away some a
this heah stuff under you' shirt?"

"The mess you jest fight and trample ovah?" retorted
Banjo. "You c'n stuff you' guts tell youse all winded, but

BANJO 42

my belly kain't accommodate none a that theah stuff, for
that is too hard feeding for mine."

Having finished eating, the men came off the deck,
all friendly vagabonds again. Squabbling and scuffling
came natural to them, like eating and drinking, dancing
and bawdying, and did not have any bad effect upon the
general spirit of their comradeship.

Malty's group picked up Banjo on the dock and sep-
arated from the others. Their next objective was to
find some conveniently situated barrel of wine that they
could bung out and guzzle without trouble.

"It's all the same in the life of the beach," Malty said
to Banjo. "Once you get used to it, you kain't feel you'-
self too good for anything!"

"Theah's some things that this heah boy won't evah
get used to," said Banjo. "I heah that officer call you
all 'a damned lot a disgusting niggers,' and I don't want
no gitting used to that. You fellahs know what the white
man think about niggers and you-all ought to do better
than you done when he 'low you on his ship to eat that
dawggone grub. I take life easy like you-all, but I ain't
nevah gwine to lay mahself wide open to any insulting
cracker of a white man. For I'll let a white man mobi-
lize mah black moon for a whupping, ef he can, foh
calling me a nigger."

"Nix on the insults when a man is on the beach," said
Malty. "Gimme a bellyful a good grub and some wine
to wash it down is all I ask for."

"You ain't got no self-respecting in you, then," said
Banjo. "Youse just a bum and no moh. I ain't a big-
headed nigger, but a white man has got to respect me, for
when I address myself to him the vibration of brain
magic that I turn loose on him is like an electric shock
on the spring of his cranium."

"Attaboy!" applauded Ginger, who loved big words

43 HARD FEEDING

with a philosophical flavor. "You done deliver a declara-
tion of principle, but a declaration of principle is a de-
pendant usynimous with the decision of the destiny of
the individual in the general."

" 'Gawd is the first principle/ I done heard that said,"
declared Malty.

Bugsy grinned, saying, "And Gawd is in Boody Lane."

"Youse a nut!" said Malty. "Don't be calling up
Gawd's name as if he was a nigger."

"I seen him there, I tell you," laughed Bugsy, "the day
of the big church fete. I seen that there blond broad
burning her candle before his image."

"It was nothing," said Ginger, "but the eternal visible
of imagination."

No barrel was found in a position favorable for a
raid, and so the boys filled their pockets with peanuts
and walked across the suspension bridge toward the
breakwater. Banjo was in a discontented mood and did
not join in the jests. At the end of the breakwater a
small boat was letting off passengers. Banjo went up
to it and said, "Bon]our" to the patron, who greeted him
with a smile.

Banjo stepped into the boat and, waving his hand
airily at his pals, said: "Good by!" The patron started
the motor and the boat went sheering off against the
breakwater toward the direction of the Vieux Port.

The boys gazed after him pop-eyed and gaping. What
a fellow Banjo was to put himself over ! None of them
knew that when Banjo's pockets were bulging with real
money that very boat had taken him and his girl on two
excursions, one to the Chateau d'lf and another to the
Canal du Rove at l'Estaque. The boat was just then
returning from a trip to the canal, and had stopped to
let off passengers who wanted to see the breakwater.

BANJO 44

Banjo had merely struck, accidentally, a pretty thing
again, but it seemed very wonderful to his pals, as if a
special pilot had appeared for him and he had walked
away from them into a boat that was conveying him to
some perfect paradise.

V. "Jelly Roll

>>

SHAKE That Thing. The opening of the Cafe Afri-
can by a Senegalese had brought all the joy-lovers of
darkest color together. Never was there such a big
black-throated guzzling of red wine, white wine, and
close, indiscriminate jazzing of all the Negroes of Mar-
seilles.

For the Negro-Negroid population of the town divides
sharply into groups. The Martiniquans and Guadeloup-
ans, regarding themselves as constituting the dark flower
of all Marianne's blacks, make a little aristocracy of
themselves. The Madagascans with their cousins from
the little dots of islands around their big island and the
North African Negroes, whom the pure Arabs despise,
fall somewhere between the Martiniquans and the
Senegalese, who are the savages. Senegalese is the geo-
graphically inaccurate term generally used to designate
all the Negroes from the different parts of French West
Africa.

The magic thing had brought all shades and grades
of Negroes together. Money. A Senegalese had emi-
grated to the United States, and after some years had
returned with a few thousand dollars. And he had
bought a cafe on the quay. It was a big cafe, the first
that any Negro in the town ever owned.

The tiny group of handsomely-clothed Senegalese were
politely proud of the bar, and all the blue overall boys

45

BANJO 46

of the docks and the ships were boisterously glad of a
spacious place to spread joy in.

All shades of Negroes came together there. Even the
mulattoes took a step down from their perch to mix in.
For, as in the British West Indies and South Africa, the
mulattoes of the French colonies do not usually inter-
mingle with the blacks.

But the magic had brought them all together to jazz
and drink red wine, white wine, sweet wine. All the
British West African blacks, Portuguese blacks, Ameri-
can blacks, all who had drifted into this port that the
world goes through.

A great event ! And to Banjo it had brought a unique
feeling of satisfaction. He did not miss it, as he never
missed anything rich that came within his line of living.
There was music at the bar and Banjo made much of it.
He got a little acquainted with the patron, who often
chatted with him. The patron was proud of his English
and liked to display it when there was any distinguished-
appearing person at the cafe.

"Shake That Thing!" That was the version of the
"Jelly-Roll Blues" that Banjo loved and always played.
And the Senegalese boys loved to shake to it. Banjo was
treated to plenty of red wine and white wine when he
played that tune. And he would not think of collecting
sous. Latnah had gone about once and collected sous
in her tiny jade tray. But she never went again. She
loved Banjo, but she could not enter into the spirit of
that all-Negro-atmosphere of the bar. Banjo was glad
she stayed away. He did not want to collect sous from
a crowd of fellows just like himself. He preferred to
play for them and be treated to wine. Sous! How
could he respect sous? He who had burnt up dollars.

47 "JELLY ROLL"

Why should he care, with a free bed, free love, and
wine?

His plan of an orchestra filled his imagination now.
Maybe he could use the Cafe African as a base to get
some fellows together. Malty could play the guitar
right splendid, but he had no instrument. If that Sene-
galese patron had a little imagination, he might buy
Malty a guitar and they would start a little orchestra that
would make the bar unique and popular.

Many big things started in just such a little way. Only
give him a chance and he would make this dump sit up
and take notice — show it how to be sporty and game.
How he would love to see a couple of brown chippies
from Gawd's own show this Ditch some decent movement
— turn themselves jazzing loose in a back-home, brown-
skin Harlem way. Oh, Banjo's skin was itching to make
some romantic thing.

And one afternoon he walked straight into a dream —
a cargo boat with a crew of four music-making colored
boys, with banjo, ukelele, mandolin, guitar, and horn.
That evening Banjo and Malty, mad with enthusiasm,
literally carried the little band to the Vieux Port. It
was the biggest evening ever at the Senegalese bar.
They played several lively popular tunes, but the Sene-
galese boys yelled for uShake That Thing." Banjo
picked it off and the boys from the boat quickly got it.
Then Banjo keyed himself up and began playing in his
own wonderful wild way.

It roused an Arab-black girl from Algeria into a shak-
ing-mad mood. And she jazzed right out into the center
of the floor and shook herself in a low-down African
shimmying way. The mandolin player, a stocky, cocky
lad of brown-paper complexion, the lightest-skinned of

BANJO 48

the playing boys, had his eyes glued on her. Her hair
was cropped and stood up shiny, crinkly like a curiously-
wrought bird's nest. She was big-boned and well-fleshed
and her full lips were a savage challenge.

"Cointreau!" The Negroid girl called when, the mu-
sic ceasing, the paper-brown boy asked her to take a
drink.

"That yaller nigger's sure gone on her," Malty said
to Banjo.

"And she knows he's got a roll can reach right up to
her figure," said Banjo. "Looka them eyes she shines on
him ! Oh, boy ! it was the same for you and I when we
first landed — every kind of eyes in the chippies' world
shining for us!"

"Yes, but you ain't got nothing to kick about. The
goodest eyes in this burg ain't shining for anybody else
but you."

"Hheh-hheh," Banjo giggled. "I'll be dawggone,
Malty, ef I don't think sometimes youse getting soft.
Takem as they come, easy and jolly, ole boh."

He poured out a glass of red wine, chinked his glass
against Malty's, and toasted, "Oh, you Dixieland, here's
praying for you' soul salvation."

"And here is joining you," said Malty.

"Dry land will nevah be my land,
Gimme a wet wide-open land for mine."

Handsome, happy brutes. The music is on again.
The Senegalese boys crowd the floor, dancing with one
another. They dance better male with male or individu-
ally, than with the girls, putting more power in their feet,
dancing more wildly, more natively, more savagely.
Senegalese in blue overalls, Madagascan soldiers in

49 "JELLY ROLL"

khaki, dancing together. A Martiniquan with his mulat-
tress flashing her gold teeth. A Senegalese sergeant
goes round with his fair blonde. A Congo boxer struts
it with his Marguerite. And Banjo, grinning, singing,
white teeth, great mouth, leads the band. . . .

The banjo dominates the other instruments; the charm-
ing, pretty sound of the ukelele, the filigree notes of the
mandolin, the sensuous color of the guitar. And Banjo's
face shows that he feels that his instrument is first. The
Negroes and Spanish Negroids of the evenly-warm, ever-
green and ever-flowering Antilles may love the rich
chords of the guitar, but the banjo is preeminently the
musical instrument of the American Negro. The sharp,
noisy notes of the banjo belong to the American Negro's
loud music of life — an affirmation of his hardy existence
in the midst of the biggest, the most tumultuous civiliza-
tion of modern life.

Sing, Banjo! Play, Banjo! Here I is, Big Boss,
keeping step, sure step, right long with you in some sort
a ways. He-ho, Banjo! Play that thing!

A little flock of pinks from the Ditch floated into the
bar. Seamen from Senegal. Soldiers from Madagascar.
Pimps from Martinique. Pimps from everywhere.
Pimps from Africa. Seamen fed up with the sea. Young
men weary of the work of the docks, scornful of the
meager reward — doing that now. Black youth close to
the bush and the roots of jungle trees, trying to live the
precarious life of the poisonous orchids of civilization.

The slim, slate-colored Martiniquan dances with a
gold-brown Arab girl in a purely sensual way. His dog's
mouth shows a tiny, protruding bit of pink tongue. Oh,
he jazzes like a lizard with his girl. A dark-brown lizard
and a gold-brown lizard. . . .

BANJO 50

A coffee-black boy from Cameroon and a chocolate-
brown from Dakar stand up to each other to dance a
native sex-symbol dance. Bending knee and nodding
head, they dance up to each other. As they almost
touch, the smaller boy spins suddenly round and dances
away. Oh, exquisite movement ! Like a ram goat and a
ram kid. Hands and feet!

Black skin itching, black flesh warm with the wine of
life, the music of life, the love and deep meaning of
life. Strong smell of healthy black bodies in a close
atmosphere, generating sweat and waves of heat.

Suddenly in the thick joy of it there was a roar and
a rush and sheering apart as a Senegalese leaped like a
leopard bounding through the jazzers, and, gripping an
antagonist, butted him clean on the forehead once, twice,
and again, and turned him loose to fall heavily on the
floor like a felled tree.

The patron dashed from behind the bar. A babel of
different dialects broke forth. Policemen appeared and
the musicians slipped outside, followed by most of the
Martiniquans.

"Hheh-hheh," Banjo laughed. "The music so good it
put them French fellahs in a fighting mood."

"Niggers is niggers all ovah the wul\" said the tall,
long-faced chocolate who played the guitar. "Always
spoil a good thing. Always the same no matter what
color their hide is or what langwidge they talk."

"And I was fixing for that fair brown. I wonder
where at she is?" said the mandolin-player.

"Don't worry," said Banjo. "Theah's always
some'n' better or as good as what you miss. You should
do like me whenevah you hit a new port. Always try to

51 "JELLY ROLL"

make something as different from what you know as a
Leghorn is from a Plymouth Rock."

"Hi-ee! But youse one chicken-knowing fool," said
Malty.

Banjo did a little strut-jig. "You got mah number all
right, boh. And what wese gwine to do now? The
night ain't begin yet at all foh mine. I want to do some
moh playing and do some moh wine and what not do?"

A Martinique guide, who had had them under sur-
veillance for a long while, now stepped up and said that
he knew of a love shop where they could play music and
have some real fun.

"You sure?" asked Banjo. "Don't fool us now, for I
lives right down here in this dump and know most a
them. And if that joint you know ain't a place that we
can lay around in for a while, nothing doing I tell you
straight. I'll just take all mah buddies right outa there."

The guide assured the boys that his place was all right.
They all went into another bar on the quay and the gui-
tar-player paid for a round of drinks. From there they
turned up the Rue de la Mairie and west along the Rue
de la Loge to find the Martiniquan's rendezvous.

They went by the Rue de la Reynarde, where a loud
jarring cluster of colored lights was shouting its trade.
Standing in the slimy litter of a narrow turning, an
emaciated, middle-aged, watery-eyed woman was doing
a sort of dance and singing in a thin streaky voice. She
was advertising the house in whose shadow she danced,
and was much like a poorly-feathered hen pecking and
clucking on a dunghill.

The boys hesitated a little before the appearance of
the drab-fronted building that their escort indicated.

BANJO 52

Then they entered and were surprised at finding them-
selves in a showy love shop of methodically assorted
things. It was very international. European, African,
Asiatic. Contemporary feminine styles competed with
old and forgotten. Rose-petal pajamas, knee-length
frocks, silken shifts, the nude, the boyish bob contrasted
with shimmering princess gowns, country-girl dresses of
striking freshness, severe glove-fitting black setting off a
demure lady with Italian-rich, thick, long hair, the
piquant semi-nude and Spanish-shawled shoulders.

Banjo saw his first flame of the Ditch between two
sailors with batik-like kerchiefs curiously knotted on their
heads. They were Malay, perhaps. This time he was
not aroused. The Martiniquan talked to a strangely
attractive girl. She had almond eyes that were painted
in a unique manner to emphasize their exotic effect. Evi-
dently she was not pure Mongolian, but perhaps some
casual crossing of Occident and Orient, commerce-
spanned, dropped on the shore of the wonderful sea of
the world.

There were half a dozen touts. One seemed a per-
son of authority in the place. He was this side of forty,
above average height, of meager form, Spanish type,
with a face rather disgusting, because, although dark,
it was sallow and deep-sunken under the cheek bones.
He wore a blue suit, white scarf, heavy gold chain, and
patent-leather shoes. The other five were youths.
Three sported bright suits and fancy shoes of two and
three colors, and two were in ordinary proletarian blue.
The proletarian suits among all the striking feminine
finery gave a certain elusive tone of distinction to the at-
mosphere, and one dressed thus was particularly con-

S3 "JELLY ROLL"

spicuous, reclining on a red-cushioned seat, under the
lavish and intimate caresses of a Negress from the An-
tilles. Her face was like that of a Pekinese. She wore
a bit of orange chiffon and had a green fan, which she
opened at intervals against her mouth as she grinned
deliciously.

Sitting like a queen in prim fatness, quite high up
against a desk near the staircase that led to the regions
above, a lady ruled over the scene with smiling business
efficiency. When the Martiniquan spoke to her, intro-
ducing his evening's catch by a wave of the hand toward
where the boys had seated themselves, and explaining
that they wanted to play their own music, she smiled a
gay acquiescence.

When Banjo and his fellows entered, many eyes had
followed them. And now as they played and hummed
and swayed, all eyes were fixed on them, and soon the
whole shop was right out on the floor.

The little black girl was all in a wild heat of move-
ment as she went rearing up and down with her young
Provengal. But he seemed unequal to catch and keep
up with her motion, so she exchanged him for the Mar-
tiniquan, who went prancing into it. And round and
round they went, bounding in and out among the jazzers,
rearing and riding together with the speed and freedom
of two wild goats.

The players paused and some girls tried to order
champagne on them, but the Martiniquan intervened
and demanded wine and spirits.

"He knows his business," the mandolin-player said to
Banjo.

"He's gotta," Banjo replied, "because he's got him-
self to look out for and me to reckin with."

BANJO 54

Suddenly the air was full of a terrible tenseness and
gravity as an altercation between the lady at the desk
and the meager, sallow-faced man seemed at the point
of developing into a fateful affair. The man was leaning
against the desk, looking into the woman's face with
cold, ghastly earnestness, his hand resting a little in his
hip pocket. The woman's face fell flat like paste and
all the girls stood tiptoe in silence and trembling excite-
ment. Abruptly, without a word, the man turned and
left the room with murder in his stride.

"That must be the boss-man," the mandolin-player
said.

"And he looks like a mean mastiff," said the guitar-
player.

"Sure seems lak he's just that thing," agreed Banjo.

Tern, tern, ti-tum, tim ti-tim, turn, tern. Banjo and
the boys were chording up. Back . . . thing . . . bed
. . . black . . . dead. . . . Jelly-r-o-o-o-o-oll ! Again
all the shop was out on the floor. No graceful sliding
and gliding, but strutting, jigging, shimmying, shuffling,
humping, standing-swaying, dogging. The girls were
now tiptoeing to another kind of excitement. Blood had
crept back up into the face of the woman at the
desk. . . .

The sallow-faced man appeared in the entrance and
strode through the midst of it to the desk. Bomb ! The
fearful report snuffed out the revel and the dame tum-
bled fatly to the floor. The murderer gloated over the
sad mess of flesh for an instant, then with a wild leap he
lanced himself like a rat through the paralyzed revelers
and disappeared.

The bewildered music-makers halted hesitantly at the
foot of the alley.

s$ "JELLY ROLL"

"Let's all go in here and take a stiff drink." Banjo
indicated a little bistro at the corner.

"Better let's leg it a HT ways longer," said the ukelele-
player, "so the police won't come fooling around us
now that wese good and well away outa there. I don't
wanta have no truck with the police."

"And they ain't gwineta mess around us, pardner,"
said Malty. "We don't speak that there lingo a theirn
and they ain't studying us. Ise been in on a dozen shoot-
ing-ups in this here Ditch, ef Ise been in on one, with
the bullets them jest burning pass mah black buttum, and
Ise nevah been asked by the police, 'What did you miss ?'
nor 'What did you see?' "

"Did you say a dozen?" cried the ukelele-player.

"Just that I did, boh, which was what I was pussonally
attached to. But that ain't nothing at all, for theah's a
shooting-up or a cutting-up — and sometimes moh — every
day in this here burg."

"Malty," said Banjo, "youse sure one eggsigirating
spade."

"Doughnuts on that there eggsigirating. It's the same
crap to me whether there was a dozen or a thousand.
They ain't nevah made a hole in me, for Ise got magic
in mah skin foh protection, when you done got you sou-
venir there on you' wrist, Banjo boy."

"Gawd! But it was a bloody affair, all right," said
the guitar-player. "I was so frightened I didn't really
know what was happening. Bam ! Biff ! And the big
boss-lady was undertaker's business before you could
squint."

"Jest spoiled the whole sport," said the ukelele-player,
"I kinda liked the nifty dump. It was the goods, al]
right."

BANJO 56

"You said it, boh," the mandolin-player grinned,
scratching his person. "It was some moh collection. All
the same, I gotta plug."

"With you, buddy," cried Banjo. "Right there with
you I sure indeed is."

"Let's go back to the African Bar," suggested the man-
dolin-player. The picture of the North African girl
shaking that jelly-roll thing was still warmly working in
his blood.

They found the African Bar closed. Again they left
the quay, and Banjo took them up one of the somber, rub-
bish-strewn alleys of the Ditch. On both sides of the
alley were the dingy cubicles whose only lights were the
occupants who filled the fronts, gesturing and calling in
ludicrous tones: "Viens ici, viens ici," and repeating
pridefully the raw expressions of the low love shops that
they had learned from English-speaking seamen.

Out of a drinking hole-in-the-wall came the creaky
jangling notes of a small, upright and ancient pianola.
The place was chock-full of a mixed crowd of girls, sea-
men, and dockers, with two man-of-war sailors and three
soldiers among them.

"What about this here dump?" asked Banjo.

The mandolin-player looked lustfully up and down
the alley and into the bistro, where wreaths of smoke
settled heavily upon the frowsy air. "Suits me all right,"
he drawled. "What about you fellows?"

"Well, I hope it won't turn into another bloody mess
of a riot this time," said the ukelele-player.

"Here youse just like you would be at home. This
is my street," said Banjo. A girl came up and, patting
him on the shoulder with a familiar phrase, she pushed
him into the bistro.

57 "JELLY ROLL"

As they entered a Senegalese who had been dancing to
their voluptuous playing at the African Bar, exclaimed:
"Here they are! Now we're going to hear some real
music — something ravishing." And he begged Banjo to
play the "Jelly-Roll."

One of the soldiers was evidently "slumming." There
was a neat elegance about his uniform and shoes that set
him apart from the ambiguous dandies of military serv-
ice, the habituees of shady places. His features and his
manner betrayed class distinction. He offered Banjo
and his companions a round of drinks, saying in slow
English: "Please play. You American? I like much
les Negres play the jazz American. I hear them in
Paris. Epatant!"

Banjo grinned and tossed off his Cap Corse. "All
right, fellows. Let's play them that thing first."

"And then the once-over," said the mandolin-player.

Shake to the loud music of life playing to the primeval
round of life. Rough rhythm of darkly-carnal life.
Strong surging flux of profound currents forced into
shallow channels. Play that thing! One movement of
the thousand movements of the eternal life-flow. Shake
that thing! In the face of the shadow of Death.
Treacherous hand of murderous Death, lurking in sin-
ister alleys, where the shadows of life dance, nevertheless,
to their music of life. Death over there! Life over
here! Shake down Death and forget his commerce, his
purpose, his haunting presence in a great shaking orgy.
Dance down the Death of these days, the Death of these
ways in jungle jazzing, Orient wriggling, civilized step-
ping. Sweet dancing thing of primitive joy, perverse

BANJO 58

pleasure, prostitute ways, many-colored variations of the
rhythm, savage, barbaric, refined — eternal rhythm of
the mysterious, magical, magnificent — the dance divine
of life.

SECOND PART

VI. Meeting-up

BANJO'S place at Latnah's was empty for many days,
for he was deep down in the Ditch again. He was
even scarce with Malty and the other boys, and
they did not know where he was lying low. Malty, Bugsy,
and Ginger had the run of a ship, where they ate, did a
little galley work, and could even sleep when they wanted
to, and Banjo was supposed to eat there, too. But only
once had he honored the beach boys' new mess with his
presence. He did, however, send down some dozen
white and colored fellows to bum off Malty. For on that
ship there was always enough left-over food to feed a
regiment of men.

Banjo did not go to the boat to feed because he was
having a jolly fat time of it. While his pals had felt
quite satisfied with the big treat of eats and drinks and
a few francs in coins from the musical seamen, Banjo's
infectious spirit had touched his fellow artistes for over
two hundred francs, which they considered nothing at all
for the time and freedom of the Ditch that he had so
generously given to them.

Latnah was not fretful about his absence. He would
come again when he wanted to, just as casually as when
they had first met. She had no jealous feeling of pos-
session about him. She was Oriental and her mind was
not alien to the idea of man's insistence on freedom of
desire for himself. Perhaps she liked Banjo more be-
cause he was vagabond.

61

BANJO 62

Banjo arose from his close corner in the Ditch, yawned,
stretched, and proceeded with the necessity of toilet.
This was always an irksome affair to him when he was
not dressing to strut. And he had nothing now worth
showing off except an American silk shirt with blue and
mauve stripes, and, jauntily over his ear, a fine bluish
felt that the mandolin-player had forced on him.

He was bidding good-by to the heart of the Ditch for
the present, because he had only ten negotiable francs for
the moment. He was going to feed himself and he
felt that he could feed heavily, for the final exhaustion
of his long spell of voluptuous excitement had left him
with a feeling of intense natural thirst and hunger. In
America, after such a prolonged, exquisite excess, he al-
ways experienced a particular craving for swine — pig's
tail, pig's snout, pig's ears, pig's feet, and chittlings.

Banjo smacked his lips recalling and anticipating the
delicious taste of pig stuff. He had a special fancy for
gras double and pie ds paquet Marseillaise. Banjo nosed
through the dirty alleys of wine shops and cook shops,
hunting for a chittlings joint. He did not want to go
through the embarrassing business of entering and sitting
down in an eating-place and then having to leave because
what he wanted was not there. At last he stood before a
long, low, oblong box, the only window of which was
packed with a multitude of pink pigs' feet, while over
them stretched an enormous maw of the color of sea-
weed. In the center of the low ceiling an electric bulb
shed a soiled light. On a slate was chalked : Repas, prix
fixe: fs. 4 vin compris.

The place was full. Banjo found an end seat not far
from the window. A big slovenly woman brought him
knife, fork, spoon, a half-pint of red wine, a length of
bread, and a plate of soup. Following the soup he had
a large plate of chittlings with a good mess of potatoes.

63 MEETING-UP

Lastly a tiny triangular cut of Holland cheese. It was
a remarkably good meal indeed for the price charged,
and quite sufficient for an ordinary stomach. But Ban-
jo's stomach was not in an ordinary state. So he set
his bit of cheese aside and asked for a second helping of
chittlings and another pint bottle of red wine.

By the time he had finished his supplementary portion
the place was three-quarters empty and he was the only
person left at his table. Banjo patted his belly and a
contented, drowsy noise way down from it escaped from
his mouth. He took the folded ten-franc note from his
breast pocket, opened it out, and laid it on the table.
The woman, instead of picking it up, presented a dirty
scrap of bill for fs. 12.50.

"Dawg bite me !" Banjo threw up his hands. He had
been expecting change out of which he could get his
cafe-au-rhum. How could an extra plate play him such
a dirty trick? He turned out his pockets and said: "No
more money, nix money, no plus billet."

The woman thrust the bill under his nose, gesticu-
lated like a true Provengale and cried with all the trum-
pets of her body: "Payez! Payez! II faut payer" Ban-
jo's tongue turned loose a rich assortment of Yankee
swear words. . . . "God-damned frog robbers. I eat
prix fixe. I pay moh'n enough. Moi paye rien plus.
Hey! Ain't nobody in this tripe-stinking dump can help
a man with this heah dawggone lingo?"

A black young man who had been sitting quietly in
the back went over to Banjo and asked what he could
help about.

"Can you get a meaning, boh, out a this musical
racket?" Banjo asked.

"I guess I can."

"Well, you jest tell this jabberway lady for me to go
right clear where she get off at and come back treating

BANJO 64

me square. I done eat prix fixe as I often does, and jest
because I had a li'l moh place in mah stimach I could fill
up and ask for an extry plate, she come asking for as
much money as I could eat swell on in Paree itself."

The intermediary turned to argue with the woman.
She said Banjo had not asked for the table d'hote meal.
But it was pointed out to her that she had not served
him a la carte. However, there was a slate over the de-
crepit desk scrawled with a la carte prices, and according
to it, and by the most liberal calculation, she seemed to
have made the mistake of overcharging Banjo. The
woman had been hiding her discomfiture behind a bar-
rage of noise and gesticulation, but suddenly she said,
"Voila," and threw down a two-franc piece on the table.

Banjo picked it up and said: "Dawgs mah tail! You
done talk her into handing me back change? I be fiddled
if you don't handle this lingo same as I does American."

As they departed the woman vehemently bade them
good-by, a la Provencale, with a swishing stream of saliva
sent sharply after them, crying, "Je suis frangais, moi"

Je suis frangais. . . . Ray (it was he who had inter-
vened) smiled. No doubt the woman thought there
could be no more stinging insult than making them sensi-
ble of being Strangers. Thought, too, perhaps, that that
gave her a moral right to cheat them.

"Le's blow this heah two francs to good friendship be-
ginning," said Banjo. "My twinkling stars, but this
Marcelles is a most wonderful place foh meeting-up."

Ray laughed. Banjo's rich Dixie accent went to his
head like old wine and reminded him happily of Jake.
He had seen Banjo before with Malty and company on
the breakwater, but had not yet made contact with any
of them.

6$ MEETING-UP

Since he had turned his back on Harlem he had done
much voyaging, sometimes making a prolonged stay in a
port whose aspect had taken his imagination. He had
not renounced his dream of self-expression. And some-
times when he was down and out of money, desperate
in the dumps of deep problematic thinking, unable to find
a shore job, he would be cheered up by a little cheque from
America for a slight sketch or by a letter of encourage-
ment with a banknote from a friend.

He was up against the fact that a Negro in Europe
could not pick up casual work as he could in America.
The long-well-tilled, overworked Old World lacked the
background that rough young America offered to a ro-
mantic black youth to indulge his froward instincts. In
America he had lived like a vagabond poet, erect in the
racket and rush and terror of that stupendous young
creation of cement and steel, determined, courageous, and
proud in his swarthy skin, quitting jobs when he wanted
to go on a dream wish or a love drunk, without being
beholden to anybody.

Now he was always beholden. If he was not bold
enough, when he was broke and famishing, to be a bum
like Malty in the square, he was always writing panhan-
dling letters to his friends, and naturally he began to
feel himself lacking in the free splendid spirit of his
American days. More and more the urge to write was
holding him with an enslaving grip and he was begin-
ning to feel that any means of achieving self-expression
was justifiable. Not without compunction. For Tolstoy
was his ideal of the artist as a man and remained for him
the most wonderful example of one who balanced his
creative work by a life lived out to its full illogical end.

It was strange to Ray himself that he should be so
powerfully pulled toward Tolstoy when his nature, his
outlook, his attitude to life, were entirely turned away

BANJO 66

from the ideals of the great Russian. Strange that he
who was so heathen and carnal, should feel and be respon-
sive to the intellectual superiority of a fanatic moralist.

But it was not by Tolstoy's doctrines that he was
touched. It was depressing to him that the energy of
so many great intellects of the modern world had been,
like Tolstoy's, vitiated in futile endeavor to make the
mysticism of Jesus serve the spiritual needs of a world-
conquering and leveling machine civilization.

What lifted him up and carried him away, after
Tolstoy's mighty art was his equally mighty life of rest-
less searching within and without, and energetic living to
find himself until the very end. Rimbaud moved him
with the same sympathy, but Tolstoy's appeal was
stronger, because he lived longer and was the greater
creator.

Drifting by chance into the harbor of Marseilles, Ray
had fallen for its strange enticement just as the beach
boys had. He had struck the town in one of those
violent periods of agitation when he had worked himself
up to the pitch of feeling that if he could not give vent
to his thoughts he would break up into a thousand ar-
ticulate bits. And the Vieux Port had offered him a
haven in its frowsy, thickly-peopled heart where he could
exist en pension proletarian of a sort and try to create
around him the necessary solitude to work with pencil
and scraps of paper.

He too was touched by the magic of the Mediter-
ranean, sprayed by its foamy fascination. Of all the
seas he had crossed there was none like it. He was
ever reminiscent of his own Caribbean, the first salty
water he had dipped his swarthy boy's body in, but its
dreamy, trade-wind, cooling charm could not be compared
with this gorgeous bowl of blue water unrestingly agi-
tated by the great commerce of all the continents. He

67 MEETING-UP

loved the docks. If the aspect of the town itself was
harsh and forbidding, the docks were of inexhaustible
interest. There any day he might meet with picturesque
proletarians from far waters whose names were warm
with romance: the Caribbean, the Gulf of Guinea, the
Persian Gulf, the Bay of Bengal, the China Seas, the
Indian Archipelago. And, oh, the earthy mingled smells
of the docks! Grain from Canada, rice from India,
rubber from the Congo, tea from China, brown sugar
from Cuba, bananas from Guinea, lumber from the
Soudan, coffee from Brazil, skins from the Argentine,
palm-oil from Nigeria, pimento from Jamaica, wool from
Australia, oranges from Spain and oranges from Jeru-
salem. In piled-up boxes, bags, and barrels, some broken,
dropping their stuff on the docks, reposing in the warm
odor of their rich perfumes — the fine harvest of all the
lands of the earth.

Barrels, bags, boxes, bearing from land to land the
primitive garner of man's hands. Sweat-dripping bodies
of black men naked under the equatorial sun, threading a
caravan way through the time-old jungles, carrying loads
steadied and unsupported on kink-thick heads hardened
and trained to bear their burdens. Brown men half-
clothed, with baskets on their backs, bending low down
to the ancient tilled fields under the tropical sun. Eter-
nal creatures of the warm soil, digging, plucking for the
Occident world its exotic nourishment of life, under the
whip, under the terror. Barrels . . . bags . . . boxes.
. . . Full of the wonderful things of life.

Ray loved the life of the docks more than the life of
the sea. He had never learned to love the deep sea.
Out there on a boat he always felt like a reluctant prisoner
among prisoners cast out upon a menacing dreariness of
deep water. He had never known a seaman who really
loved the deep sea. . . . He knew of fellows who could

BANJO 68

love an old freighter as a man might love a woman.
Nearly all the colored seamen he knew affectionately
called their ship the old "broad." The real lure of the
sea was beyond in the port of call. And of all the great
ports there was none so appealing to seamen as Marseilles
in its cruel beauty.

The port was a fine big wide-open hole and the docks
were wide open too. Ray loved the piquant variety of the
things of the docks as much as he loved their colorful
human interest. And the highest to him was the Negroes
of the port. In no other port had he ever seen congre-
gated such a picturesque variety of Negroes. Negroes
speaking the civilized tongues, Negroes speaking all the
African dialects, black Negroes, brown Negroes, yellow
Negroes. It was as if every country of the world where
Negroes lived had sent representatives drifting in to
Marseilles. A great vagabond host of jungle-like Ne-
groes trying to scrape a temporary existence from the
macadamized surface of this great Provencal port.

Here for Ray was the veritable romance of Europe.
This Europe that he had felt through the splendid
glamour of history. When at last he did touch it, its
effect on him had been a negative reaction. He had to
go to books and museums and sacredly-preserved sites to
find the romance of it. Often in conversation he had
politely pretended to a romance that he felt not. For
it was America that was for him the living, hot-breathing
land of romance. Its mighty business palaces, vast
depots receiving and discharging hurrying hordes of
humanity, immense cathedrals of pleasure, far-flung
spans of steel roads and tumultuous traffic — the terrible
buffalo-tramping crush of life, the raucous vaudeville
mob-shouting of a newly-arrived nation of white throats,
the clamor and clash of races and the grim-grubbing posi-
tion of his race among them — all was a great fever in

69 MEETING-UP

his brain, a rhythm of a pattern with the time-beat of
his life, a burning, throbbing romance in his blood.

There was a barbarous international romance in the
ways of Marseilles that was vividly significant of the
great modern movement of life. Small, with a popula-
tion apparently too great for it, Europe's best back
door, discharging and receiving its traffic to the Orient
and Africa, favorite port of seamen on French leave, in-
fested with the ratty beings of the Mediterranean coun-
tries, overrun with guides, cocottes, procurers, repelling
and attracting in its white-fanged vileness under its pic-
turesqueness, the town seemed to proclaim to the world
that the grandest thing about modern life was that it
was bawdy.

Banjo wanted to see what Ray's work was like and
Ray took him up to his place, which was a little up beyond
the Bum Square. Banjo had been interested in Ray's
talking about his work, but when he saw the sheets of
ordinary composition paper, a little soiled, and the shabby
collection of books, he quickly lost interest and changed
the conversation to the hazards of the vagabond pan-
handling life.

Ray suggested taking a turn along the Corniche. Banjo
had never been on the Corniche. Ray said it was one
of the three interesting things of the town from a pic-
torial point of view — the Ditch, the Breakwater and
the Corniche. He liked the Corniche in a special way,
when he was in one of those oft-recurring solitary, idly-
brooding moods. Then he would watch the ships com-
ing in from the east, coming in from the west, and specu-
late about making a move to some other place.

They went by the Quai de Rive Neuve toward Catalan.

BANJO 70

At a unique point beyond the baths of that name Ray
waved back toward the breakwater.

"Hot damn! What a mahvelous sight!" exclaimed
Banjo. "I been in Marcelles all this time and ain't
never come this heah side."

Two ships were going down the Mediterranean out to
the East, and another by the side of l'Estaque out to the
Atlantic. A big Peninsular and Orient liner with three
yellow-and-black funnels was coming in. The fishing-
boats were little colored dots sailing into the long veil
of the marge. A swarm of sea gulls gathered where one
of the ships had passed, dipping suddenly down, shooting
up and circling around joyously as if some prize had
been thrown there to them. In the basin of Joliette the
ships' funnels were vivid little splashes of many colors
bunched together, and, close to them in perspective, an
aggregate of gray factory chimneys spouted from their
black mouths great columns of red-brown smoke into the
indigo skies. Abruptly, as if it rose out of the heart of
the .town, a range of hills ran out in a gradual slope
like a strong argent arm protecting the harbor, and
merged its point in the far-away churning mist of sea
and sky.

"It's an eyeful all right," said Banjo.

Ray said nothing. He was so happily moved. A
delicious symphony was playing on the tendrils that
linked his inner being to the world without, and he was
afraid to break the spell. They walked the whole
length of the Corniche down to the big park by the sea.
fThey leaped over a wall and a murky stream, crossed the
race track, and came to rest and doze in the shade of a
magnolia.

It was nightfall when they got back to town, return-
ing by the splendid avenue called the Prado. The Bum
Square was full of animation. All the life of the dark

7i MEETING-UP

alleys around it — clients of little hotels and restaurants,
bistros, cabarets, love shops, fish shops, meat shops —
poured into the square to take the early evening air. A
few fishermen were gathered round a table on a cafe
terrace, and fisher-girls promenaded arm in arm, their
wooden shoes sounding heavily in the square. The Arab-
black girl who had danced so amorously at the Senegalese
cafe was parading with a white girl companion. Five
touts, one of whom was a mulatto, stood conversing with
a sniffing, expectant air near the urinal. The dogs at
their old tricks gamboled about in groups among the
playing children. A band of Senegalese, nearly all wear-
ing proletarian blue, were hanging round the entrance
of a little cafe in striking, insouciant ease, talking noisily
and laughing in their rich-sounding language. A stumpy
fat cocotte and a tall one entered the Monkey Bar, and
the loud voice of the pianola kicking out a popular trot
rushed across the square.

Suddenly the square emptied before an onrushing com-
pany of white laborers, led by a stout, bull-bodied man,
heading for the little group of Senegalese. The group
of Senegalese broke up and scattered, leaving two of
their number knocked down, and one of the white at-
tackers who had caught a clout in the head. At that
moment, Bugsy and Dengel, coming from the docks,
appeared at the southwest corner of the square, just as
one of the blacks was felled.

"He — ey! You see that theah! You see that!"
Bugsy cried, and to his amazement the big white man,
followed by his gang, came charging toward him. Mili-
tant by nature and always ready to defend himself, Bugsy
exclaimed : "Hey — hey! Now what they coming to mess
with me for?" And he stood his ground, on guard. But
when he saw the whole gang coming unswervingly down

BANJO 72

upon him, he wavered, backed a few steps, then turned
and ran nimbly like a rat up one of the dark alleys.

Dengel was soft with the wine of the docks and, com-
prehending nothing of what was in the air, stood sway-
ing in his tracks where he was struck a vicious blow in
the face that felled him.

As suddenly as it had commenced, the onslaught was
ended. Bugsy and Dengel went to the African cafe where
some of the Senegalese had gathered. Banjo and Ray
also went there. They had seen the eruption from a
cafe in the square.

Dengel's nose was bleeding badly.

"It's sure counta you always getting in a fight that
Dengel he got hit," said Banjo to Bugsy.

"Me! It wasn't no fault a mine. What was I to do,
pardner?"

"Jest keep you' mouth shut and do what you done did
at the critical moment — run ! What else was there to
do when the whole damn ditch a white mens is after
one nigger?"

"If them Senegalese had done stand up to it "

Bugsy began.

"They tried to, but what could five men do against
an army?"

"But Gawd in heah'n!" exclaimed Bugsy. "I almost
got like feeling I was in Dixie with the fire under mah
tail."

"H'm. If it was in Dixie, you wouldn't be sitting there
now, blowing a whole lot a nonsense off'n you' liver
lips."

Ray was talking to the proprietor of the bar and a
Senegalese, who was explaining that the trouble arose
out of differences between the Italian dock workers and
the Senegalese. There was much jealousy between the
rival groups and the Senegalese aggressively reminded

73 MEETING-UP

the Italians that they were French and possessed the
rights of citizens.

"There is no difference between Italians and French-
men," said the barkeeper. "They are all the same white
and prejudiced against black skin."

"Cy est pas vraly pas vrai," a tall Senegalese seaman
jumped to his feet. "Ca ri existe pas en France**

"It exists, it exists all right," insisted the patron. He
was small and eager and wore glasses and a melancholy
aspect. "France is no better than America. In fact,
America is better every time for a colored man."

Upon that a clamorous dispute broke out in Senegalese
and French, interspersed with scraps of English. Ray
sat back, swallowing all of it that he could understand.
The proprietor was a fervid apostle of Americanism and
he warmed up to defend his position. He praised Amer-
ican industry, business, houses, theaters, popular music,
and progress and opportunity for everybody — even
Negroes. He said the Negroes knew how they stood
among the Americans, but the French were hypocrites.
They had a whole lot of say, which had nothing to do
with reality.

At this the Senegalese seaman bellowed another pro-
test, punctuated with swearing merde on the Anglo-Saxons
and all those who liked their civilization, and the pro-
prietor invited him to leave his cafe if he could not be
polite to him. The seaman told the proprietor that even
though he had been to the United States and made money
enough to return to Marseilles and buy a bar, he should
not forget that he was only a common blackamoor of
the Dakar streets, while he (the seaman) was a fils des
nobles, belonging to an old aristocratic Senegambian
family. The proprietor retorted that there was nothing
left to the African nobility but "bull." Ask Europe about

BANJO 74

that, especially France, which was the biggest white hog
in Africa.

The Senegalese started again, as if he had been
pinched behind, to the defense of the protectress of his
country. But the proprietor brought down La Race
Negre on him. This was a journal for the uDefense de
la race Negre" published by a group of French West
Africans in Paris. The journal was displayed conspicu-
ously for sale in the cafe, although some colored visi-
tors had told the proprietor they did not think it was
good for his business to sell it there.

But the proprietor had a willful way. He was rather
piqued that the cafe was not doing so well since the first
opening days. Before he bought it the clients were all
white, and now no whites went there except the broken-
down girls of the Ditch. He remarked white people
peeping in at the door and not entering when they saw
the black boys. The handful of well-dressed Senegalese
who went there said they were sure the whites did not
enter not because of prejudice, but because the black boys
lounging all over the cafe were dirty, ragged, and smelly.
The proprietor stressed his feeling that it was all a mat-
ter of prejudice. White people, no matter of what
nation, did not want to see colored people prosper.

Also, the proprietor was intransigant about La Race
Negre because he had been rebuked for selling it by a
flabby bulk of a man who had once been an official out
in one of the colonies, and who now had something to
do with the welfare of the indigenes in Marseilles. The
white gentleman had told the proprietor that the Negroes
who published La Race Negre were working against
France and such a journal should be suppressed and its
editors trapped and thrown into jail as criminals. The
proprietor of the bar replied that he was not in West
Africa, where he had heard the local authorities had

75 MEETING-UP

forbidden the circulation of the Negro World, but in
Marseilles, where he hoped to remain master in his own
cafe. As the proprietor said that the gentleman from
the colonies left the cafe brusquely and unceremoniously
without saying good-by. The patron exploded: "He
thought he was in Africa. He wanted to know every-
thing about me. Wanted to see my papers. Like a
policeman. If it wasn't on account of my business I
would have shown him my black block. Even wanted
to know how I made my money in America. I told him I
would never have made it in France.

"That was like a cracker now," he continued. "I
never had a white man nosing into my business like that
in America. But these French people are just like de-
tectives. They want to know everything about you, espe-
cially if you're a black. I'm going to let them see I'm
not a fool."

Some time later the barkeeper learned from an indigene
employed by his gentleman visitor that that personage
had been very offended by the barkeeper's use of the
word "master," that he had not remained uncovered
when talking to him, and that the Senegalese lounging
in the cafe had not saluted when he entered.

The barkeeper spread out the copy of La Race Negre
and began reading, while the Senegalese crowded around
him with murmurs of approval and that attitude of
credulity held by ignorant people toward the printed
word.

He read a list of items:

Of forced conscription and young Negroes running

away from their homes to escape into British African

territory.

Of native officials paid less than whites for the same

work.

BANJO 76

Of forced native labor, because the natives preferred
to live lazily their own lives, rather than labor for the
miserable pittance of daily wages.
Of native women insulted and their husbands humili-
ated before them.
Of flagellation.

Of youths castrated for theft.
Of native chiefs punished by mutilation.
Of the scourge of depopulation. . . .

"That's how the Europeans treat Negroes in the colo-
nies," said the barkeeper. The protesting seaman ap-
peared crushed under the printed accounts. The bar-
keeper launched a discourse about Africa for the Africans
and the rights of Negroes, from which he suddenly shot
off into a panegyric of American culture. He had returned
from America inspired by two strangely juxtaposed
ideals: the Marcus Garvey Back-to-Africa movement
and the grandeur of American progress. He finished up
in English, turning toward the English-speaking boys :

"Negroes in America have a chance to do things.
That's what Marcus Garvey was trying to drive into their
heads, but they wouldn't support him "

"Ain't no such thing!" exclaimed Banjo. "Marcus
Garvey was one nigger who had a chance to make his
and hulp other folks make, and he took it and landed
himself in prison. That theah Garvey had a white man's
chance and he done nigger it away. The white man gived
him plenty a rope to live, and all he done do with it was
to make a noose to hang himse'f. When a ofay give an-
other ofay the run of a place he sure means him to make
good like a Governor or a President, and when a darky

gets a chance I tell you, boss, Garvey wasn't worth

no more than the good boot in his bahind that he done
got."

77 MEETING-UP

"Garvey was good for all Negroes," the barkeeper
turned upon Banjo, — "Negroes in America and in Europe
and in Africa. You don't know what you're talking
about. Why, the French and the British were keeping
the Negro World, Garvey's newspaper, out of Africa.
It was because Garvey was getting too big that they got
him."

"There was nothing big left to him, if you ask me,"
said Banjo. "I guess he thought like you, that he was
Moses or Napoleon or Frederick Douglass, but he was
nothing but a fool, big-mouf nigger."

"It's fellahs like you that make it so hard for the
race," replied the barkeeper. "You have no respect for
those who're trying to do something to lift the race
higher. American Negroes have the biggest chance that
black people ever had in the world, but most of them
don't grab hold of it, but are just trifling and no-'count
like you."

Banjo made a kissing noise with his lips and looked
cross-eyed at the barkeeper. "Come on, pard, let's beat
it," he said to Ray. Outside he remarked: "He grabbed
his, all right, and growed thin like a mosquito doing it.
Look how his cheeks am sunkin' ! I guess he's even too
cheap to pay the price of a li'l' pot a honey. Why
didn't you say some'n', Ray? I guess you got more brains
in you' finger nail than in twenty nigger haids like his'n
jest rising up outa the bush of Africa."

"I always prefer to listen," replied Ray. "You know
when he was reading that paper it was just as if I was
hearing about Texas and Georgia in French."

"But, oh, you kink-no-more!" laughed Bugsy. "Did
you notice his hair? It's all nice and straightened out."

"You don't have to look two time to decipher an
African nigger in him, all the same," said Banjo, con-

BANJO 78

temptuously. "A really and truly down-there Bungo-
Congo."

"Get out!" said Ray. "You're a mean hater, Banjo.
He's just like other Negroes from the States and the
West Indies."

"Not from the States, pard. Maybe the monkeys
them "

"Monkey you' grandmother's blue yaller outa the red
a you' charcoal-black split coon of a baboon moon!"
cried Bugsy, shaking off his rag of a coat. "I'll fight any
nigger foh monkeying me."

" 'Scuse me, buddy, I thought you said you was Amer-
ican. I didn't know you come from them Wesht Indies
country. Put you' coat on. You and me and Ginger
and Malty am just like we come from the same home
town. We ain't nevah agwine to fight against one an-
other."

"But you' friend there, he's West Indian, too." The
little wiry belligerent Bugsy was cooling down as quickly
as he had warmed up.

Banjo waved his hand deprecatingly : "He ain't in
that class. You know that."

In the Bum Square they met Latnah and Malty.
From the Indian steward of a ship from Bombay, Latnah
had gotten a little bag of curry powder and a great
choice chunk of mutton, and she was preparing to make
a feast.

"Hi, but everything is setting jest as pretty as pretty
could be I" cried Banjo. "I been thinking about you,
Latnah."

"Me too think," said Latnah. "Long time you no
come."

"The fellahs them, you know how it is when we get
tight. All night boozing and swapping stories."

79 MEETING-UP

"Stray cock done chased off a neighbor's lot going
strutting back home to his roost," added Malty.

Banjo kicked him on the heel.

Ray was going off to a little alley restaurant, but
Banjo would not hear of that. Latnah supported him.

"Sure, you-all come my place," she said.

She cooked the food on the step just outside the door.
The wood coal that she took from a bright-covered box
and lit with a wad of paper, crackled tinnily in the
stove, which was the bottom part of some throw-away
preserve can, such as tramps use to warm themselves in
winter.

The cooking touched pungently the boys' nostrils and
made Ray remember the Indian restaurant in New York
where sometimes he used to go for curry food.

"Oh, the wine!" cried Latnah. "Who got money?"

Banjo shrugged, Malty grinned, and Ray said, "I
got a couple a francs."

"No, no you, camarade," she christened Ray.

"Who's to have money ef you no got?" Bugsy asked
her. She fussed for a while about her waist and ex-
tracted a note, which she handed to Banjo. She made
Ray shift his position where he was sitting on the box
from which she had taken the coal, and got out two
quart bottles.

"You get one extra bottle vin blanc," she said.

"What for vin blanc?" demanded Banjo. "It's
dearer."

"Mebbeyou' friend "

"No, I always prefer red," said Ray.

"All right, get three bottles vin rouge" said Latnah,
counting over her guests with a quick birdlike nodding.

"No forget change," she called after Banjo, tramp-
ing heavily down the stairs.

BANJO 80

"Not much change coming outa ten francs," he flung
back.

"It's no ten; it's twenty," she said. "Don't let the
whites rob you."

"Sweet nuts, ef it ain't!" exclaimed Banjo. "All right,
mamma. I got you."

When Banjo returned with the wine he forgot to
hand over the change. Latnah drew the cot into the
middle of the little room and, spreading newspapers, she
served the feast on it. The boys ranged themselves on
each side of the cot, Latnah sitting where she could lean
a little against Banjo. Ginger came in when they were in
the middle of the feast.

"Whar you been? We been looking for you all over,"
said Malty.

"I was cruising around," said Ginger, "but Ise right
here with you, all right. What it takes to find you when
there's a high feeding going on Ise got right here." He
pointed to his nose.

"Sure, youse got a combination of color there," said
Banjo, "that oughta smell out lots a things in this heah
white man's wul'."

"Chuts, combination!" said Bugsy. "You got to show
me that there's any more to it than there is to naturaliza-
tion, that you and me and Malty is. Ginger here ain't
nothing from combination but a mistake."

"What's that, you Bugsyboo?" said Ginger.

"You heared me, Lights-out," replied Bugsy.

Latnah rolled up the newspapers in a bundle and put
them in a corner. They smoked cigarettes. Banjo fell
into a talking mood and gave a highly extravagant ac-
count of how he met Ray. The proprietress of the
restaurant became a terrifying virago who would have
him arrested by the police, if Ray had not intervened.
And when he threatened to call in the police against her,

81 MEETING-UP

she begged him not to and handed over the change in
tears.

"I got something for you," Latnah said to Banjo.
"Bet you no guess."

"American cigarettes — or English?" asked Banjo.

"No."

"Oh, I can't guess. What is it?"

Latnah took a paper packet out of a cardboard suit
box and gave it to Banjo. It contained a pair of pyjamas
all bright yellow and blue and black.

"Oh, Lawdy! Lemme see you in them, Banjo!" cried
Malty, who jumped up and made a few fairy motions.

"What you want waste money on these heah things
for?" demanded Banjo.

"A man had plenty of them selling cheap," said Lat-
nah. "Ten francs. I think he steal them. They good
for you."

"You evah hear a seaman fooling with pyjamas?"
said Banjo.

"Sure," said Ginger. "I used to wear pyjamas mah-
self one time. It's good for a change. You' hide will
feel better in them tonight."

Latnah tried to hide her coy little smile behind her
hand.

"Plugging home, plugging home," chanted Malty to
the air of the "West Indies Blues."

They were short of cigarettes and Banjo went off to
get some. Banjo remained so long Bugsy and Ginger
left to look for him. Ginger returned after a while,
stuck his head through the door, and tossed a packet of
yellow French cigarettes at Latnah. "Can't find that
nigger Banjo anywheres," he said. "He done vanish
like a spook."

"Like a rat into one a them holes, you mean," said
Malty.

BANJO 82

Latnah became fidgety and melancholy. She tossed
a cigarette at Ray. "Banjo is one big dirty man," she
said.

"Oh, he'll come all right," said Malty. "He's broke."

"He no broke," said Latnah. "He got change of the
twenty francs."

"Oh!" exclaimed Malty. And he slightly shifted
his position where he was squatting on an old cushion,
so that his feet could touch Latnah's. "Gee! Latnah,
you' cooking was so mahvelous it makes me feel sweet
and drowsy all over."

"You good friend, Malty, very good friend." And
she did not change her position. "You more appreciate
than Banjo."

"Oh, he's all right, though; but you know his way.
. . . I ain't got the price of a room to stay up this end
tonight, and I feels too good and tired to walk way back
to the box car. I wish you'd let me sleep on the floor
here."

Latnah gave no reply. Ray slipped out, saying he
would see them tomorrow.

VII. The Flute-boy

A POTATO-SKINNED youth posed nonchalantly
in the Bum Square, a flute in his hand, his features
distinguished by a big beatific grin.

Banjo, passing through with Ray, saw him and re-
marked, "He's a back-home, sure thing."

"You think so?" replied Ray.

"Sure. Jest look at the pose he's putting on. He's
South Carolina so sure as corn pone is Dixie. Watch
me pick him up. . . . Hello, Home town !"

"Hello, you there !" The three came together.

"Jes' arrive?" asked Banjo. "Youse sure looking
hallelujah happy like a man jest made a fortune."

"Fortune is me in a bad way," said the flute-holder,
"I've just gotten rid of all that I had." And he turned
his trousers pockets out.

"You mean they just done rid you," laughed Banjo.

The flute-boy told his story. He had fine white teeth
and red gums, and contentedly displaying them, he told
his story of the "broad" and the Ditch, told it heartily
as many other colored boys before him had done.

He began with how he had quit the "broad" after
disputing with an officer. The "broad" was something
like the one that brought Banjo to Marseilles. One of
those rare slow-cruising American tramps that sometimes
look in on Marseilles. The galley crew was Negro, with
the flute-boy the only "blond" among them. Another
of the crew was a West African deportee named Taloufa,

83

BANJO 84

who, slated to be paid off at a European port, had
chosen Marseilles as the least troublesome.

The flute-boy and Taloufa were great chums. They
were the most interesting persons of the ship. Taloufa
Came from a colony of British West Africa, had attended
a mission school there, and was intelligent. The flute-
boy came from the Cotton Belt country, but his people
had moved to New Jersey when he was a kid. He went
to school in New Jersey and had finished with a high-
school diploma. It was his first trip away from the
States. Before he had sailed only coastwise, between
New York and New England and New York and the
South.

In high school he had learned a little composition
French. He was enchanted to reach Marseilles, having
heard about its marvels from older seamen. He wished
to have a good spell of the town, but his ship was stay-
ing just three days. He was serving in the officers' mess
and he maneuvered himself into getting a reprimand
from one of the officers.

"I told him off," the flute-boy said. "He called me
a damned yaller nigger and I gave him a standing invi-
tation to go chase himself."

For this offense the captain had the flute-boy up before
the American consulate, but there he was not granted
the permission to finish with the boy's services.

"American consul don't want no seamen hanging
around this heah sweet wide-open dump," Banjo giggled,
voluptuously.

"You bet he don't," agreed the flute-boy. "He told
the captain to take me back to the ship and that I should
watch my step. I told him I'd rather be paid off. But
he said, 'Not on your life, mah boy. You go back home
to your sweet 'taters and wat'melon. Gee ! I wish I was

85 THE FLUTE-BOY

back home now biting into one mahself.' He spoke that
common darky language, kidding me, I guess."

The flute-boy returned with the captain to the ship
and was put in the crew's mess. But before he had
been given anything to do he was disputing with the
donkeyman.

"I'm going to quit this dirty broad," he cried, and
the captain was delighted to see the flute-boy go down
the gangway with his suitcase. Taloufa was still aboard,
waiting to be paid off the next day. The flute-boy had
ten dollars, which he changed into francs. He took a
room in a hotel in Joliette and went from there straight
to the Ditch.

The flute-boy loitered, fascinated, around the mar-
velous fish market of the place. Red fish and blue,
silver, gold, emerald, topaz, amethyst, brown-black,
steel-gray, striped fish, scaly fish, big-bellied fish, and
curs and cats growling and spitting over the bowels of
gutted fish. A great fish town, Marseilles, and here was
the big central market which supplies (for nourishment
and lotteries and what not) the little markets and sheds
and bistros that stink all over the city, the slimy, scaly,
cold-blooded things.

Fresh catches from the bay and fish transported from
other ports. The fishermen tramped in in their long
felt boots. The fish-women spread themselves broadly
behind their stalls. And in bright frocks and thick
mauve socks and wooden shoes, the fish-girls pattered
noisily about with charming insouciant ease, two be-
tween them bearing a basket, buxom and attractive and
beautiful in their environment, like lush water-lilies in a
lagoon.

The stuff of the groceries thick around the fish market
was exposed on the sidewalk: piles of cheeses, blocks of

BANJO 86

butter, dried fish, salt herrings, sauerkraut, ham, saus-
ages, salt pork, rice, meal, beans, garlic. Stray dogs
nosing by stopped near the boxes. Cats prowled around.
A sleek black one leaped upon a keg of green olives,
sniffing and humping up his back. A laughing boy grab-
bing at its tail; the cat leaped down, shooting into a dark
doorway. A pregnant woman passing popped one of the
olives into her mouth, smacked her lips with fine relish,
and called the grocery boy to give her one hecto.

The flute-boy wandered among the mixed conglomera-
tion of people, domestic beasts, and things. He had an
air about him that, even amid that humid bustle, invited
attention enough.

A roving-eyed fish youth, wearing proletarian blue,
spotted him. He had an odd little stock of English
words, just enough to serve the purpose of soliciting, but
the flute-boy responded in French, happily proud to try
out his high-school acquirement.

"Tu parle frangais tres bien," said the fish boy.

"Fraiment?"

"Mais out. Tu a un bon accent, camarade."

The flute-boy was overwhelmed with a peacock feel-
ing. They were just a step from Boody Lane, which led
inevitably into the fish market. A painted old girl, a fish
in her hand, elbowed them purposely and went shaking
herself mournfully into the alley.

"Ici on nique-nique beaucoup," said the fishy white
with a nasty smirk, bringing palm and fist together in a
disgusting manner to emphasize his words. And he
showed his find into Boody Lane.

It was a few yards of alleyway with a couple of
drinking-dens, a butcher shop, and hole-in-the-wall rooms
where the used-up carnivora of the city find their final
shelter. Dismal, humid rooming-houses inhabitated by

87 THE FLUTE-BOY

youthful scavengers of proletarian life — Provengales,
Greeks, Arabs, Italians, Maltese, Spaniards, and Cor-
sicans.

A slimy garbage-strewn little space of hopeless hags,
hussies, touts, and cats and dogs forever chasing one
another about in nasty imitation of the residents. The
hub of low-down proletarian love, stinking, hard, cruel.
A ditch abandoned by the city to pernicious manure,
harmless-appearing on the surface. Yet ignorant sea-
men tumbling into it had been relieved of hundreds and
thousands of francs, and many of the stupid, cold-blooded
murders of the quarter might be traced there. The
little trick of hat-snatching was practiced there and the
uninitiate, fancying a bawdy joke, might follow that
gesture to the loss of his money or his life.

The white boy conducted the yellow toward one of the
drinking-places where a pianola was rapidly hammering
out a popular song. Near by were two policemen. One
stood on the corner and the other paced slowly along
the alley, eating peanuts. A young male, wearing rosy
pyjamas and painted like a scarecrow, came smirking
out of the bar and minced along beside the policeman.

"Ou tu vas?" asked a sloven woman, standing broadly
in the door of the bar.

"Coucher" the policeman flung back at her.

The woman cackled with the full volume of her rau-
cous voice digging her hands into her flabby sides and
agitating her clothes so that she displayed all of her
naked discolored pillars of legs. "Peut-etre, peuU
etre, . . . On ne salt jamais." And she cackled again.

When the flute-boy entered the bar he ordered beer
for himself and beer for his guide. The woman who
served wanted a small bottle of lemonade-like drink for
herself, and all the old girls of the place, crowding around

BANJO 88

the flute-boy, took the same drink. The flute-boy thought
the stuff was cheaper than beer and said, with a grin,
"Go ahead;'

But when he was ready to leave he received a bill for
four hundred and seventy-five francs. He cried out that
he would not pay. It was too much. The patrone
showed him her price list. Forty francs a bottle for the
lemonade-like drink. The flute-boy said he could not
pay. They tried to take his purse. He hugged the
pocket. They called the police. The two policemen
that he had seen outside the place came in and told him
he had to pay. They told him that if he was not satis-
fied he could lodge a complaint at the police station —
afterward. The flute-boy showed his pocketbook. It
contained three hundred and fifty francs only. The
patrone took that and told him to return with the balance
when he got more money. The policemen turned him
loose, one of them exchanging a sly wink with the patrone
as they walked away.

While the flute-boy was telling his story to Banjo and
Ray, Bugsy and Dengel came surreptitiously up behind
them in the shadow of the little palm tree. Bugsy made
a sharp noise with his mouth and snapped his fingers,
and the flute-boy started apprehensively.

"Hi, but you sure is goosey," laughed Banjo. And
right there and thenceforth the flute-boy was dubbed
"Goosey."

"I wish the fire that was lit by that fellow that got
six months for it had burned the damned Ditch down,"
said Ray.

"Why, whatsmat pardner?" said Banjo. "The Ditch
is all right. Nobody don't have to go rooting in Boody
Lane unless you want to. Let everything take its
chance, says I."

"Chance! What good is it, then, Banjo, when the

89 THE FLUTE-BOY

people who should get some fun out of it — the seamen
— are always the victims? Think of the police making
this boy pay. It's a crime and graft all round."

"All the policemen in this Ditch are in league with
the women and the maqnereaux" said Dengel. "Some
of the police have women in the boxons."

"Not possible!'' exclaimed Ray.

"What will you?" responded Dengel. "The police
are just like everybody else, except that they are perhaps
the bigger hogs. Their pay is twenty-five francs a day.
What will you?"

"We should worry, pardner," said Banjo. "Look at
Goosey. He's happy about it."

Goosey's grin gave an ineffable expression to his fea-
tures.

"D'you blow the flute?" Banjo asked.

"I sure think that I do."

"If you blow it real good I can use you."

"In what way?"

"It's like this."

Banjo explained his intention to form an orchestra.
There was one thing that he was sure of about this
town, and that was that the people loved music. All
over the Ditch you never heard anything but bad music.
If we could get a set of fellows together to turn out
some good music we would sure make a success of the
thing. But it was a hard job getting them. The fellows
with instruments never stay long in port. Malty could
play the guitar, but he had no instrument.

"He would put it in hock if he had one," said Bugsy.

"If I get him one I'd sure see that he didn't, though,"
returned Banjo.

Goosey said that his friend Taloufa had a fine guitar.

"Oh, does he do? Jest lead me along to that darky.
Where is he burying his head now?"

BANJO 90

"He's still on the ship," Goosey replied, "going to
be paid off tomorrow. Hell fix me up so I don't have
to worry."

"He's a sucker, eh?" said Bugsy. "That's why you
done dumped all you hed in Boody Lane."

"Lay off the kid, Bugsy," said Banjo. "You got too
much lip."

"As much as a baboon," added Goosey, laughing.
"But where you get that 'kid' from?" he asked Banjo.
"I don't see my daddy in you."

"Nevah mind, but youse a green kid, all the same,"
replied Banjo. "Anyway, I think we c'n do some busi-
ness together, you and the flute, you' friend and the
guitar "

"He's got a little horn, too," said Goosey.

"Sure enough? That's the ticket and me and mah
banjo."

"Banjo! That's what you play?" exclaimed Goosey.

"Sure that's what I play," replied Banjo. "Don't you
like it?"

"No. Banjo is bondage. It's the instrument of slav-
ery. Banjo is Dixie. The Dixie of the land of cotton
and massa and missus and black mammy. We colored
folks have got to get away from all that in these enlight-
ened progressive days. Let us play piano and violin,
harp and flute. Let the white folks play the banjo if
they want to keep on remembering all the Black Joes
singing and the hell they made them live in."

"That ain't got nothing to do with me, nigger," re-
plied Banjo. "I play that theah instrument becaz I
likes it. I don't play no Black Joe hymns. I play lively
tunes. All that you talking about slavery and bondage
ain't got nothing to do with our starting up a liT or-
chestry."

"It sure has, though, if you want me and my friend

91 THE FLUTE-BOY

Taloufa in with you. We aren't going to do any of that
black-face coon stuff."

"Nuts on that black-face. Tha's time-past stuff. But
wha' you call coon stuff is the money stuff today. That
saxophone-jazzing is sure coon stuff and the American
darky sure knows how to makem wheedle-whine them
'blues.' He's sure-enough the one go-getting musical
fool today, yaller, and demanded all ovah the wul'."

"Hm." Goosey reflected a little. "I'm a race man
and Taloufa is race crazy. Pity he isn't more educated.
It's a new day for the colored race. Up the new race
man and finish the good nigger. I as much as told that
captain that when he tried to monkey with me. I told
him I was in France and not in the United States."

"You were very foolish," said Ray. "That wasn't
helping your race any."

"That's what you think, but I know I was right.
France isn't like the United States nor Africa "

"And what's wrong with Africa?" demanded Dengel.

"Africa is benighted. My mother always advised me
when I was a kid to get away as far as farthest from
Africa. 'Africa is jungleland,' she used to say; 'there's
nothing to learn from it but dark and dirty doings.'
That's where I don't go with my friend Taloufa. He's
gone Back-to-Africa. He thinks colored people scat-
tered all over the world should come together and go
Back-to-Africa. He bought a hundred dollars of Black
Star Line shares."

"He did!" exclaimed Banjo. "And what does he
think now they got the fat block a that black swindler
in the jail-house?"

"Taloufa thinks better of him," said Goosey. "Gar-
vey is a bigger man among colored people since they
jailed him. Taloufa was at Liberty Hall for the big
manifestation. And all the speakers said that the British

BANJO 92

were back of Garvey catching jail. They were scared of
him in Africa and wouldn't let the Negro World through
the mails. Taloufa can tell you all about it tomorrow.
I don't know much. I am no Back-to-Africa business.
That's a big-fool idea. But I'm a race man."

' 'If you think about you' race as much as you do about
Boody Lane you'd be better off, maybe," said Bugsy.

They all laughed heartily.

"Chuts! All that race talking," continued Bugsy, "is
jest a mess a nothing. That saloon-keeper is race talk-
ing all the time, and he is robbing his countrymen them,
too, giving them more rotten stuff to drink than the
white man. He's wearing gold spectacles with a gold
chain, and looking so like he can't see natural ; but mark
me, when the white man done get through with him, he'll
sure enough find his own eyesight and be walking around
here like any other nigger."

More laughter, and Banjo asked: "Where do we go
from here? The Ditch is getting ready to eat, and I
feel like heavy loading. Whose the money guy tonight?"

"I got a little money today," Ray said. "You can all
come up to my dump."

"Tha's the ticket!" Banjo applauded. "There's mah
pardner for you, Goosey. Guess he could clean you up
on that race stuff. Yet he ain't nevah hunting down no
coon nor bellyaching race on me."

"But you're interested in race — I mean race advance-
ment, aren't you?" Goosey asked Ray.

"Sure, but right now there's nothing in the world so
interesting to me as Banjo and his orchestra."

Fill. A Carved Carrot

BANJO had the freedom of the Ditch and, as his pal,
Ray shared some of it and was introduced to the
real depths of the greater Ditch beyond his alley
at the extreme end. Banjo had the right of way through
Boody Lane and Ray could go through it now without
his hat being snatched, as Banjo had a speaking acquaint-
ance with all the occupants of the boxes.

One afternoon Banjo and Ray were playing checkers
in a little cafe of the quarter, with a bottle of wine be-
tween them. A demi-crone of the hole came in with a
ready-made gladness which seemed as if it might change
at any moment into something poisonous. She asked Ray
to pay for a drink, calling the patrone of the bistro, who
was in the kitchen. Ray agreed and she took a camou-
flage absinthe. After drinking it, she leaned over Ray's
chair, caressing him. Her touch imparted to him an
unbearable sensation as of a loathsome white worm
wriggling down his spine. And mingled with that was
the smell of the absinthe on her breath. He detested
the nauseating sweet-garlicky odor of absinthe. In the
thing bending over him he felt an obscene bird, like the
pink-headed white buzzard of the Caribbean lands that
also exuded an odor like absinthe-and-garlic.

Abruptly Ray shifted away from the creature, who
fell awkwardly over the back of the chair.

"I pay you a drink, but I don't want you to touch

me.

93

BANJO 94

"Merde alorsl Why? I am not rotten."

"I didn't say you were. Maybe I am. All the same,
it is finished. We won't talk about it any more."

"Gee, pardner, why you so hard on the old thing?"
demanded Banjo.

"To protect myself, Banjo. You've got your way
with the Ditch and I've got mine."

Banjo laughed. "Youse right, pardner. Gotta meet
them as they come — rough. Talk rough, handle them
rough, everything make rough. For way down heah is
rough-house way and there ain't no other way get-
ting by."

UI don't mind the roughness at all," replied Ray. "I
like it. I prefer it to the nice pretensions of the upstage
places. What gets me down here is the sliminess and
rattiness. The only thing rough and real down here
is the seamen and the Senegalese."

"And the onliest thing is the one thing, pardner, that
we know."

"I wouldn't know if that's the whole truth."

" 'Cause youse tight-wad business. You know that
Algerian brown gal got a scrunch on you?"

"I know it, but I'm scared of her."

"Why is you?"

"Because of her mouth. What a marvelous piece of
business it is. But she'd just make tiger's feed of me.
Anyhow, I am safe. She thinks I have the change to
take her on because I have one good suit of clothes and
keep clean. As I haven't, there's nothing doing. She
isn't like Latnah."

"Latnah is all right, eh?" Banjo said, carelessly.

"Sure. She's the only thing down here I can see,"
said Ray.

"Oh, you done fall for her, too?" Banjo chuckled.

95 A CARVED CARROT

It was dinner time. They went to a Chinese restau-
rant in the Rue Torte to feed for four francs each.

After dinner the boys came together in a cafe that
they called Banjo's hang-out. Dengel, Goosey, Taloufa,
Bugsy, Ginger, and Latnah, with Malty fooling near her,
quite funny, grinning and gesturing like an overgrown
pickaninny in amorous play.

Ray and Banjo came in and, relishing the situation,
Banjo smacked his lips aloud and grinned so contagiously
that all the beach boys, following his lead, imitated him.
Malty became a little embarrassed, and Banjo said: "Go
right on with you, buddy. Git that theah honey while
the honeycomb is sweet foh you."

Vexed momentarily, Latnah turned away, humping up
her back like a little brown cat against Malty. Although
under the reaction of resentment she had loaned those
fancy pyjamas to decorate Malty's limbs first, it had
been no real conquest for Malty at all, for when Banjo
did at last decide to take a turn in the pretty things, she
felt the second-hand wear incomparably better than the
first, and realized that for her Malty would never be
able to hold a candle to the intractable Banjo.

The patrone of the cafe was quite taken by Banjo
and his hearty-drinking friends, and she had given them
a free option on the comfortable space at the rear for
the use of their orchestra.

Taloufa had taught them a rollicking West African
song, whose music was altogether more insinuating than
that of "Shake That Thing."

"Stay, Carolina, stay,
Oh, stay, Carolina, stay!"

That was the refrain, and all the verses were a repe-
tition, with very slight variations, of the first verse.

BANJO 96

Taloufa had a voluptuous voice, richly colored like the
sound of water lapping against a bank. And he chanted
as he strummed the guitar:

"Stay, Carolina, stay. ..."

The whole song — the words of it, the lilt, the pat-
tern, the color of it — seemed to be built up from that
one word, Stay! When Taloufa sang, "Stay," his eyes
grew bigger and whiter in his charmingly carnal coun-
tenance, the sound came from his mouth like a caressing,
appealing command and reminded one of a beautiful,
rearing young filly of the pasture that a trainer is break-
ing in. Stay!

"Stay, Carolina, stay. . . ."

"There isn't much to it," said Goosey: "it's so easy
and the tune is so slight, just one bar repeating itself."

"Why, it's splendid, you boob!" said Ray. "It's got
more real stuff in it than a music-hall full of American
songs. The words are so wonderful."

"I took her on a swim and she swim more than me,
I took her on a swim and she swim more than me,
I took her on a swim and she swim more than me,

Stay, Carolina, stay,

Stay, Carolina, stay. . . ."

"Don't blow on the flute so hard; you kinder kill the
sound a the banjo," said Banjo to Goosey.

"I can't do it any other way. A flute is a flute. It
mounts high every time above everything else."

"I tell you what, Banjo," said Ray. "Let Goosey
play solo on the flute, and you fellows join in the chorus.
The chorus is the big thing, anyway."

"Tha's the ticket," agreed Malty, who was blowing
the tiny tin horn and looked very comical at it, as he was
the heftiest of the bunch.

97 A CARVED CARROT

So Goosey played the solo. And when Banjo, Talouf a,
and Malty took up the refrain, Bugsy, stepping with
Dengel, led the boys dancing. Bugsy was wiry and long-
handed. Dengel, wiry, long-handed, and long-legged.
And they made a striking pair as abruptly Dengel turned
his back on Bugsy and started round the room in a bird-
hopping step, nodding his head and working his hands
held against his sides, fists doubled, as if he were holding
a guard. Bugsy and all the boys imitated him, forming
a unique ring, doing the same simple thing, startlingly
fresh in that atmosphere, with clacking of heels on the
floor.

It was, perhaps, the nearest that Banjo, quite uncon-
scious of it, ever came to an aesthetic realization of his
orchestra. If it had been possible to transfer him and
his playing pals and dancing boys just as they were to
some Metropolitan stage, he might have made a bigger
thing than any of his dreams.

"I took her on a ride and she rode more than me,
I took her on a ride and she rode more than me,
Oh, I took her on a ride and she rode more than me,
Stay, Carolina, stay,
Stay, Carolina, stay. . . ."

Five men finishing a round of drinks at the bar went
and sat at a table among the beach boys. They wore
Basque caps. They applauded the playing. One of
them was fat and round with a kind of rump round-
ness all over, but it was the compact fatness of muscle
and blood and not of some pulpy fruit. He bought
wine for the players and asked Banjo to play more.
Glasses chinked. Goosey shook his flute, wiped the
mouth of it, and started.

A troop of girls filed in from the boxes, led by Ray's
absinthe lady. They broke in among the boys and
began dancing with them in their loud self-conscious way.

BANJO 98

But as soon as the music stopped they turned to the
newcomers. Like sea gulls following a ship, the girls
were always after the beach boys, whenever the boys
had some paying business in hand. Between the sorority
and the fraternity down there in the Ditch the competi-
tion was keen. The girls amused themselves with the
beach boys when the beach boys had paying guests that
they wanted to get at, but when the beach boys, having
no money nor any potential catch, attempted, with mas-
culine vanity, to make jolly with the girls, they were
ruthlessly given a very contemptuous shoulder — espe-
cially if there were any possibility of a "prize" in sight
— some white thing prejudiced against the proximity of
black beach boys and envious of their joy.

The girls obtained drinks from the white seamen —
enough to warm them up to work for more substantial
favors. But on this occasion the seamen were limiting
themselves to wine and song. However, after a little
well-managed, persistent persuasion, one of them, a
swarthy, thin-faced, middling type, was carried off.

His remaining companions called for more wine for
Banjo and his boys. The girls, all but one, gave them
their backs and went off shaking themselves disdainfully.
The one who remained was the absinthe lady. Guzzling
down his wine, Goosey fondled his flute again.

"I took her on a jig and she jigged more than me,
I took her on a jig and she jigged more than me,
Oh, I took her on a jig and she jigged more than me!
Stay, Carolina, stay. . . ."

The playing was so good that it stirred the very round
sailor to get a little nearer to the musicians. And when
the music stopped he put a fraternal arm round Goosey's
shoulder. Banjo grinned at them comically and drawled
in rough-ripe accents: "I'm a rooting hog!"

99 A CARVED CARROT

"And I'm a dog," said Goosey in a giggling fit, and
he chanted the little fairy song:

"List to me while I sing to you
Of the Spaniard that ruined my life. . . ."

"Come on, git on to that theah flute, " said Banjo,
affecting a rough manner with him.

"What about the 'West Indies Blues'?" suggested
Goosey.

"Why no play 'Shake That Thing'?" said Dengel.

" 'Carolina' once again," decided Banjo. "We'll do
the whole show from start to finish and Ray'll tell us
how it was. Eh, pardner?"

Goosey took up his flute and the round sailor sat
down with his forefinger posed on his lip. The tout of
the absinthe girl, an undersized, mangy-faced man of
dead glassy eyes, and wearing proletarian blue, looked
in at the bistro and beckoned to her. She went to the
entrance and he handed her something and slunk off.
It was an enormous carrot, out of the fertile peasant
soil of Provence, crudely carved.

The girl went back to the rear and thrust the carrot
under the nose of the tight-round sailor. He reddened
and, crying, "Slut!" cuffed the girl full in the face, and
as she fell he drove a kick at her. The girl shrieked.

The patrone rushed quickly to the door and locked
out the crowd that was gathering. In a moment the girl
picked herself up and the patrone's man, a docker who
had come in during the evening, let her out and closed
the door again. The crowd dispersed.

"Stay, Carolina, stay. . . ."

The sailor who had slapped the girl stood the beach
boys some more wine.

BANJO ioo

"It's a rough life, pardner," Banjo said to Ray. "Got
to treat 'em rough, all right, or they'll walk all ovah
you."

"I woulda choked her to death with these black hands
of mine," said Ray.

The swarthy sailor who had gone out returned with
his girl and bought her a liqueur — a Cointreau. Soon
after the five men left. They had gone a few paces
only up the alley when two shots barked out, precipitat-
ing the beach boys to the door of the bistro. The plump
round sailor came running back.

"They have killed my comrade! They have killed
my comrade!" he cried. Two bicycle policemen came
sprinting from the waterfront. From out of the sinister
houses and bistros the same curious crowd was gathering
again, but there was not a witness who had seen the
murderer nor could tell whence the shots came. The
four sailors stood over their prostrate comrade, the
swarthy one who had bought the girl the Cointreau.
The bullets, really intended for the round one, had clean
finished him.

IX. Taloufa's Shirt-tail

TALOUFA came from the Nigerian bush. He had
attended a mission school where he learned reading,
arithmetic, and writing. He was taken to Lagos by
a minor British official. And when the Englishman was
returning to England he took Taloufa along as a "boy."
Taloufa was thirteen years old at that time. For nearly
three years he served his master in a Midland town.
Then he got tired of it, full fed up of seeing white
faces only. He ran away to Cardiff, where he found more
contentment among the hundreds of colored seamen who
live in that port. And young, fresh, and naive, he be-
came a great favorite among the port girls. He shipped
to sea as a "boy," making Cardiff his home. He was
there during the riots of 19 19 between colored and
whites, and he got a brick wound in the head.

He went to America after the riots and jumped his
ship there. He lived in the United States until after
the passing of the new quota immigration laws, when,
the fact of his entering the country illegally getting
known, he was arrested and deported. In America he
had joined the Back-to-Africa crusade and was a faithful
believer in the Black Star Line bubble, the great dream of 7
commerce that was to link Negroes of the New World J
with those of Africa. He bought shares in it and, al-
though the bubble burst with the conviction and imprison-
ment of the leader for fraudulent dealings, Taloufa
still believed in him and his ideas of Back-to-Africa.

101

BANJO 102

Taloufa maintained that the Back-to-Africa propa-
ganda had worked wonders among the African natives.
He told Ray that all throughout West Africa the natives
were meeting to discuss their future, and in the ports
they were no longer docile, but restive, forming groups,
and waiting for the Black Deliverer, so that, becoming
aroused, the colonial governments had acted to keep out
all propaganda, especially the Negro World, the chief
organ of the Back-to-Africa movement.

"The Black Deliverer has delivered himself to the
ofays' jail-house," said Ray.

"It's the damned English that got him there," said
Taloufa.

Taloufa firmly believed the rumor, current among
Negroes, that representatives of the British Intelligence
Service had instigated the prosecution and conviction
of Marcus Garvey in the United States.

However, Taloufa had no immediate intention of re-
turning to West Africa. It was his first trip to this
great Provengal port of which he also had heard and
dreamed much. And after tasting it for a while he ex-
pected to go on to England.

He had at once fallen in with the idea of Banjo's
orchestra. Unlike Goosey, he was not squeamish about
the choice of music. He loved all music with a lilt, and
especially music that was heady with sensuousness. Banjo
found it easy to work along with him. If Taloufa had a
little word to say about Back-to-Africa, Banjo would
listen deferentially, and for his answer refer him to Ray.

"I ain't edjucated, buddy. Ask mah pardner, Ray."

The day following their big musical night, Banjo took
Taloufa down to look the breakwater over. Returning
from Joliette to the Vieux Port in the afternoon, they
stopped in a bistro of the Place de Lenche for a cool
guzzle of wine. The Place de Lenche is midway be-

103 TALOUFA'S SHIRT-TAIL

tween Joliette and the Bum Square. The Quartier
Reserve slopes up a somber crisscross of alleys to its
edge, where it ends.

Finishing their bottle, the boys started down one of the
alleys into the Ditch, when they were attracted by a
striking girl framed in front of a bistro. She was
straight, boyish, and carrot-headed. And she stood right-
arm akimbo and the left up against the jamb of the
door, between her fingers a cigarette at which she whiffed
with an infinitely bored mechanical manner. A young
Chinese, leaning against a lamppost a little farther down
on the opposite side of the alley, was beckoning to her.
Lizard-like, excessively slim and hipless, his smooth buff-
yellow countenance was rigidly immobile, but the balls
of his eyes behind the curious little slits were burning
with rage.

"Gawd on his golden moon! What a saucy-looking
doll that one is!" Banjo exclaimed.

"I ain't studying any kelts," replied Taloufa.

"Watch her and that sweet chink. She's scared a
him."

Not a muscle of the Chinese youth's face twitched as
the girl went slowly, reluctantly toward him. He stood
fixed in his tracks until she came to him, her toes up to
his toes, her face almost touching his face. Then he
said something to her, his lips barely moving, and as
she opened her mouth to reply he lifted his knee and
drove a terrific kick into her belly. The girl fell back-
ward with a shriek on the cobblestones.

A policeman then coming down from the Place de
Lenche, bicycle in hand, rushed over, and apprehended
the Chinese. Immediately the girl picked herself up
and grabbed the arm of the youth, crying to the police-
man: "Leave him alone! Leave him alone!" The
policeman left them a little shamefacedly as the gang

BANJO 104

of spectators that had quickly gathered laughed de-
risively.

"Sale vache au roulette" said the Chinese boy, and
putting the girl before him he said, "Go on," and began
kicking her all the way down into the Ditch. And sub-
dued, without a whine, she went. A little knot of pasty-
faced kids frisked about and, laughing, cried: "Chinois!
Chinois!"

"She honors and obeys her boss all right," Taloufa
remarked, dryly.

"They're the only real sweetbacks in this Ditch, them
Chinese," said Banjo. "The only ones kain bring you a
decent change a suit and strut the stuff like a fellow back
home."

Taloufa went to the Antilles Restaurant for dinner.
Banjo had taken a dislike for that restaurant and would
not go there. Taloufa promised to meet him after din-
ner at the beach boys' cafe on the other side of the Bum
Square, where they would play.

Taloufa had not gone Back-to-Africa in ideas only,
but also in principle . . . and nature. He put up at
the Antilles because it was a hotel primarily for Negroes
(although it did not at all exclude the little pinks of the
Ditch who went there for chocolate trade and brought
in business), owned by a Negro couple.

The Antilles Restaurant was right off the Bum Square.
It was situated in one of the narrowest, dampest, and
most rubbishy of the alleys, but as you entered it you
were stirred by the warm cheerfulness of the little oblong
place. With its high narrow benches and painted walls
it had something of the aspect of a Greenwich Village
den. And, if you knew anything of the cooking of the
West Indies with its rice-and-Congo-peas dishes, fish
fried in cocoanut oil and annatto-colored sauces, you

105 TALOUFA'S SHIRT-TAIL

would be charmed by the pepper-pot flavor of the
place. . . .

The customers were colored seamen, soldiers from
Martinique and Guadeloupe, a few from Madagascar,
and three brown girls. During the dinner a brown, jolly-
faced soldier played an accordion while a Martinique
guide and sweetman, who was sweet in the Ditch for
every purchasable thing, was shaking a steel pipe, about
the size of a rolling-pin, containing something like beans
or sand grains. The curious thing went beautifully with
the accordion.

They played the "beguin," which was just a Martinique
variant of the "jelly-roll" or the Jamaican "burru" or
the Senegalese "bombe." The tall, big-boned patrone
started the dancing. She radiated energy like a boiler
giving off steam. She danced with a whopping sergeant,
talking all the time the Martinique dialect in a deep
voice of the color and flavor of unrefined cane sugar.
She was easily the central figure, making the girls look
like dancing attendants. It was an eye-filling ensemble
of delicious jazzing, and the rhythm of it went tickling
through the warm blood of Taloufa, who was still smack-
ing his lips over his sausage-and-rice, tempered with a
bottle of old Bordeaux.

"Beguin," "jelly-roll," "burru," "bombe," no matter
what the name may be, Negroes are never so beautiful
and magical as when they do that gorgeous sublimation
of the primitive African sex feeling. In its thousand
varied patterns, depending so much on individual rhythm,
so little on formal movement, this dance is the key to the
African rhythm of life. . . .

In company with a pretty Provengale, the Arab-black
girl came in. Her hair stood up stiff, thick and exciting.
Her mouth was like a full-blown bluebell with a bee on
its rim, and her eyes were everywhere at once, roving

BANJO 106

round as only Arab eyes can. She had disappeared since
the night of her glorious performance at the "Shake-
That-Thing" festival and was just this day returned to
Marseilles again.

Taloufa saw her for the first time and fell for her.
Their eyes met, his a question, hers a swift affirmative,
and he went to dance with her. There was no common
language between them, but what did that matter? Ta-
loufa's swelling emotion was eloquent enough. And
mingled with that emotion was the patriotic feeling of
kinship with his pick-up that made him do the "begum'*
with a royal African strut.

After that dance they sat together, the girl choosing
a bottle of mousseux for the treat. . . . Taloufa was
filling the glasses from a second bottle when Banjo en-
tered in search of him.

"For the love of a liT piece!" Banjo cried. "Ain't
you coming to play noneatall tonight, buddy?"

Not understanding, but guessing that Banjo wanted to
get Taloufa away, the girl looked at him in a hostile
manner. She knew, of course, that Banjo was on the
beach.

"You gotta carry on without me tonight," Taloufa said
in a thick, ripe-brown voice, slowly, pointlessly fingering
his guitar.

"Get outa that," said Banjo. "You ain'ta gwine to
drop a fellah flat like that. Come and give us a hand.
You got all the balance a the night foh sweet flopping.
Ray's got two ofays with him and I wanta turn loose
some'n' splendacious foh them. Them's English and
might hulp us some. A fellah nevah know his luck.
Theyse done some moh running around the wuf jest lak
you and me and Malty, and they knows every knowingest
place in this white man's Europe."

107 TALOUFA'S SHIRT-TAIL

"But IVe got this sweet business with me," objected
Taloufa.

"Man, tell her you'll see it later. I'll fix it up with
her. This is Marcelles. Everything wait on you down
to Time himse'f when youse gotta roll on you."

It was not so easy to get Taloufa away from the girl,
but Banjo managed it, making eloquent promises of re-
turning him to the Antilles.

"You come back without fail," said the girl as Banjo
opened the door.

"Youse clean gone on her, eh?" remarked Banjo as
they went along the Bum Square.

"She's a bird of a brown," was Taloufa's response.

"Watch out! Our own color is the most expensive
business in this sweet burg. Ise one spade can live with-
out prunes when I ain't in chocolate country. You see
Latnah. I got her all going mah own way becazen Ise
one independent strutter."

"I've noticed all right you aren't foolish about her,"
agreed Taloufa. "Malty's more that way. But I'm
different from you. I haven't got any appreciation at
all for the kelts."

"You're joking," exclaimed Banjo, laughing. "You
ain't telling me that you done gone all the way back
home to Africa even by that most narrow and straitest
road that a human mortal was nevah made to trod?"

"I'm not kidding at all," responded Taloufa. "I'm
foursquare one hundred per cent African."

At the hangout Bugsy, Goosey, Ginger, Dengel, Malty,
and Ray with his two guests were waiting. They were
two Britishers who lived uptown, but were frequently
down in the Ditch. Ray had met them by one of the
tourist bureaus of the Cannebiere. Like himself, they
were always traveling. But they had been staying for
some length of time in Marseilles. Ray knew nothing

BANJO 108

about them yet — what hobby they pursued and what
they were doing in Marseilles. They spoke cultivated
English and the taller of the two had a colonial accent
that Ray could not place. At the hangout they treated
the beach boys, and the girls that their presence attracted
there, to the best liqueurs and fines in the place.

"He was just falling down for a wonderful brown,"
cried Banjo as he entered with Taloufa, "but I carried
him right off away from it."

The old bistro shook with everybody's laughter.

"Which one a them was it?" demanded Malty.

"That saucy-lipped, shakem-shimmying sweet
mam-ma."

"The dawggonest, hardest, and dearest piece a
brownness in this bum hussy," said Bugsy.

"Now Ise got mah man, we'll play 'Carolina' for yo-
all," Banjo announced.

"I took her on a jig and she jigged more than me. . . ."

Lustily Goosey fluted it and the boys charged mightily
into the chorus.

"Stay, Carolina, stay. . . ."

The Britishers demanded champagne for the boys.
The bistro-keeper had only vins mousseux, Clairette, and
Royal Provence. They made her send her husband out
for champagne. He returned with four bottles of white-
label Mercier.

"That's better," said the taller white. "I hate the
vile taste of those sickly-sweetish mousseux wines."

Between intervals of champagne-swilling the boys
played and danced. "Carolina," "Mammy-Daddy,"
"That's My Baby," "Shake That Thing," "The Garvey
Blues," and all the "blues" that Banjo's memory could
rake up.

lop TALOUFA'S SHIRT-TAIL

When the Britishers left the bistro there was still
champagne in the bottles, and by the time the boys were
finished, they were all posing in attitudes of soft ecstasy.

In the Bum Square, Latnah appeared and hung on
to Banjo. The group began to break up, every man to
his own dream! Taloufa was all in a haze of intoxica-
tion, but he remembered his rendezvous with the girl at
the Antilles bar. Latnah and Banjo went along with
him, but when they got there the Antilles was closed.

Returning to the Bum Square, they found Malty,
Bugsy, and Ginger, undecided about their aims, swaying
softly in their tracks.

"Let's all have a chaser of some'n'," suggested Banjo.

"No, no," protested Latnah. "It too late and you-all
saoul."

"Shut up," said Banjo. "This is a man's show."

They walked a little along the quay and into a cafe.
And there was Taloufa's girl disdainfully drinking beer
with a white corporal, who seemed broke and quite fed
up with the business of life, because a common soldier
could not enjoy its pleasures when he was far away from
pay day.

The girl brightened' up with a smile and brusquely
left the soldier to take charge of Taloufa, whose legs
were like reeds under him. She had been much put out
that he had not returned to the Antilles. She had even
changed for the occasion and was wearing a wine-colored
frock, all soft and gleaming. Her crinkly hair was done
up in the shape of a bowl, and in her buxom beauty and
the magnetic aura of fascination around her she looked
like some perfect marvel of mating between amber-
skinned Egypt and black Sudan.

Malty took Taloufa's guitar. "I wanta play some
moh," he droned in a singsong. "I ain't noways sleepy."

BANJO no

The girl went off with Taloufa.

Outside, Latnah said to Banjo : "She no good girl for
your friend. I know her. She very wicked."

"Oh ... she can't kill him," he replied. "Let's
allez to turn the spread back."

Malty had reached that delightful attitude of inebria-
tion when a man feels like staying the night through,
tippling and fooling with boon companions. Bugsy, who
had contrived to pass many of his glasses over to the
other boys, was quite aware of what was happening, but
Ginger was all enveloped in a brown fog.

"Let's carry on, fellahs," said Malty, "till the stars
them fade out."

He had some money and they went into a little open-
all-night cafe. Malty strummed softly on the guitar and
hummed snatches of West Indian "shay-shay" and

"jamma."

"When you feel a funny feel,
When you feel a funny feel,
When you feel a funny feel,
Get in the middle of the wheel.

"The daughter of Cordelia is going round the town —
Sailor men in George's Lane after the sun gone down,
Going round, going round Cordelia Brown. . . ."

"I love her oh, oh, oh. . . .
I love her so, so, so. . . .
I love the little-brown soul of her,
I love the classy-town stroll of her.
And every move she makes is like a picture to me,
I love her to mah haht and I love her on mah knee."

They had finished four bottles of white wine tempered
with lemonade when Taloufa came rushing in in shirt
sleeves, his shirt-tail flying.

in TALOUFA'S SHIRT-TAIL

"She gypped me ! She gypped me I" he cried. "Took
every cent I had and beat it."

"All you' money? Banjo said you had about three
thousand francs !" cried Malty.

"How you mean rob you?" from Bugsy.

"Rob you — rob you . . ." Ginger singsonged.

All three of them spoke together.

"Cleaned you outa all that money?" Malty questioned.

Taloufa explained that he had been long-headed
enough to leave two thousand five hundred francs at
his hotel, but the girl had got away with all he had — over
three hundred francs. Bugsy, scornful of his incompe-
tence, interrupted him while he was talking :

"Git you' shirt in you' pants, mon, git it in. You
ain't in the African jungle with the monkeys in the trees
now. Youse on the sidewalk of the white man's big city.
Git it in, I say."

Taloufa was too agitated to pay any attention. Gin-
ger reached over and arranged his clothes for him.

"I was so boozy and all in I fell asleep," Taloufa said,
"and when I woke up she was gone. I thought of my
pocketbook right away, and looked in my coat pocket,
but every nickel was clean gone."

"So you done got rooked foh nothing at all!" ex-
claimed Bugsy. "My Gawd! The baboons them in the
bush where you come from has got moh sense than you.
And what youse gwine do about it?"

"I don't know," replied Taloufa.

"Don't know?" repeated Bugsy. "Why, lock her up,
man ! Lock her up ! You ain't gwine a let that black
slut pass all that buck to her white p-i, when we fellahs
am hungry on the beach. Lock her up, I say."

Taloufa hesitated about the police. Malty was indif-
ferent, but Ginger was flatly for letting the matter rest.

"You shoulda leave the money with us. Now she done

BANJO 112

had it I wouldn't mess with no police. Just as cheap be
magnamisuch."

"Crap on that magnamisuch !" retorted Bugsy.
" 'Causen you done make the same fool a you'self, you
think everybody is a sucker like you.'*

"I don't want to arrest a girl of my own race," said
Taloufa.

"In the can with race!" cried Bugsy. "A slut is a
slut, whether she is pink or blue. You don't have to
arrest her nohow. Jest get a policeman to get back that
good money and let him turn her loose after you get it."

But Ginger, who was the only one who could make
himself intelligible in French, refused to budge in search
of a policeman.

"Let the blighting thing be," he said. "It'll soon turn
sewer stuff. When the maquereaux in the Ditch finish
with it, they pass it to them cousins in the sea."

Bugsy induced Taloufa to go with him to find a police-
man. "You don't have to lock her up. Jest get you'
money back."

They found a policeman and brought him back for
Ginger to explain. Ginger explained, but he and Malty
refused to go along to search out the girl.

"You scared a them lousy maquereaux" Bugsy
taunted.

"Not a damn sight," declared Malty. "I ain't study-
ing them babies. I was thinking personally of the prin-
ciple of this heah algebra."

"That's some'n' sure said," Ginger applauded. "The
principle of the thing is the supposition of its circum-
ference. Now you, Bugsy, ef you was in that gal's
place "

"You fiddling, low-down, wut'less yaller nigger!"
swore Bugsy. "What you think I is to put myself in her

ii3 TALOUFA'S SHIRT-TAIL

place? You think Ise gwine be everything like you be-
cause Ise on the beach? Not on you' crack!"

He went off with Taloufa and the policeman. He
knew the house where the Algerian girl lived in an alley
above the Bum Square. They routed her out of bed.
They searched her room thoroughly. They found noth-
ing. She pretended to vexed amazement that they should
molest her. She had left Taloufa, she said, simply be-
cause he had gone to sleep ! Bugsy urged Taloufa to
jail the girl, but Taloufa refused and told the policeman
to turn her loose.

When they returned empty-handed to Ginger and
Malty on the quay, Ginger sat right down on the pave-
ment and gurgled.

"I knowed you wouldn't find a dimmity dime," he
droned. "When one a them gals make a getaway she
pass that dough tutswit to her p-i, and he transfer it to a
safe spot."

"I'm going back to the hotel," said Taloufa. "I am
tired."

Dawn was just lifting the shroud of night from the
face of the Ditch, turning silver-blue the shadows, lighting
the somber fronts of love shops and bistros, the gray
granite of the Mairie, the fish market, the fishing-boats,
and the excursion boats in faint motion. Toward the
Catalan baths the horizon was suffused by a russet flush.
A soft breeze floated gracefully like a sloping wave of
sea gulls into the walled squareness of the calm Vieux
Port.

"Let's go down to the breakwater and sleep," Ginger
yawned.

X. Story-telling

THE beach boys were at the Senegalese cafe. It was
afternoon of a rainy day. Ray was trying to get
some of the Senegalese to tell stories like the Brer
Rabbit kind or the African animal fables of the West
Indies. But the Senegalese were not willing to talk.
Banjo had said openly that Ray was a writing black, for
Banjo felt proud of that. The Senegalese got the infor-
mation from Dengel and became a little suspicious of
Ray, imagining, perhaps, that he would write something
funny or caustic of their life that would make them ap-
pear "uncivilized" or inferior to American Negroes.

Ray himself hadn't the habit of exhibiting his un-
profitable literary talent in the workaday world that he
loved to breathe in, for experience had taught him that
many common people, like many uncommon people, fear-
ing or hoping to be used in a story, are always unnatural
and apt to pose in the presence of a writer. And, apart
from modesty, he enjoyed life better without wearing
the badge. That the badge, indeed, might be useful
he was too often made aware, in a world of impressive
appearances. But that was another matter. If, when
alone, writing, he lived in an unconsciously happy state,
he was also inexpressibly happy when he was just one of
the boys cruising the docks or in a drinking revel.

Banjo had thought that the boys would take Ray's
writing as naturally as he took it and everything else.
But Goosey, for one, didn't.

114

ii5 STORY-TELLING

"You mean to say you'd write about how these race
boys live in the Ditch here and publish it?" he asked
Ray. In speaking of Negro people Goosey always
avoided the word "Negro" and "black" and used, in-
stead, "race men," "race women," or "race."

"Sure I would," answered Ray. "How the black boys
live is the most interesting thing in the Ditch."

"But the crackers will use what you write against the
race!"

"Let the crackers go fiddle themselves, and you, too.
I think about my race as much as you. I hate to see it
kicked around and spat on by the whites, because it is a
good earth-loving race. I'll fight with it if there's a
fight on, but if I am writing a story — well, it's like all of
us in this place here, black and brown and white, and I
telling a story for the love of it. # Some of you will
listen, and some won't. "-If I am a real story-teller, I /
won't worry about the differences in complexion of those
who listen and those who don't, I'll just identify myself
with those who are really listening and tell my story.*
You see, Goosey, a good story, in spite of those who tell
it and those who hear it, is like good ore that you might j
find in any soil — Europe, Asia, Africa, America. The/
world wants the ore and gets it by a thousand men scram-
bling and fighting, digging and dying for it. The world
gets its story the same way."

"That's all right. But what do you find good in the
Ditch to write about?"

"Plenty. I'm here, and mean to make a practical
thing of the white proverb, 'Let down your bucket where
you are.' "

"You might bring up a lot of dirt." Goosey turned
up his nose in a tickling, funny, disdainful way.

"Many fine things come out of dirt — steel and gold,

vj

BANJO 116

pearls and all the rare stones that your nice women must
have to be happy."

"Why don't you write about the race men and women
who are making good in Paris ?"

"I'm not a reporter for the Negro press. Besides, I
can't afford to keep up with the Negroes of Paris. And
as they are society folk, they might prefer to have a
society writer do them, like Monsieur Paul Morand,
perhaps."

"You don't have to sneer at race society because you
are out of it. It's a good thing. Our society folks are
setting a fine example of a high standard of living for
the race."

"I can't see that. They say you find the best Negro
society in Washington. When I was there the govern-
ment cvlerks and school-teachers and the wives of the few
professional men formed a group and called themselves
the 'upper classes.' They were nearly all between your
complexion and near-white. The women wore rich clothes
and I don't know whether it was that or their complexions
or their teaching or clerking ability that put them in the
'upper class.' In my home we had an upper class of
Negroes, but it had big money and property and power.
It wasn't just a moving-picture imitation. School-teachers
and clerks didn't make any ridiculous pretenses of belong-
ing to it. ... I could write about the society of Negroes
you mean if I wrote a farce.

"Gee ! I remember when I was in college in America
how those Negroes getting an education could make
me tired talking class and class all the time. It was
funny and it was sad. There was hardly one of them
with the upper-class bug on the brain who didn't have a
near relative — a brother or sister who was an ignorant
chauffeur, butler, or maid, or a mother paying their way
through college with her washtub.

ii7 STORY-TELLING

"If you think it's fine for the society Negroes to fool
themselves on the cheapest of imitations, I don't. I am
fed up with class. The white world is stinking rotten
and going to hell on it."

"But since you're a Negro, wouldn't it be a good thing
for the race if the best Negroes appreciate what you
write?"

"The best Negroes are not the society Negroes. I
am not writing for them, nor the poke-chop-abstaining
Negroes, nor the Puritan Friends of Color, nor the
Negrophobes nor the Negrophiles. I am writing for
people who can stand a real story no matter where it
comes from."

"I don't care what you do, brother," said Goosey. "I
was talking for the race and not for myself, for I am
never going back to those United Snakes."

"What's that you call 'em?" Banjo filled the bar
with a roar of rich laughter.

"You heard me." Goosey was grinning and shaking
all over at his witty turn.

"Why, Goosey, you're all right!" cried Ray. "Where
did you hear that? You didn't invent it, did you?"

"Sure I made it up myself," Goosey replied, proudly.

United Snakes. The simile struck Ray's imagination,
giving him a terrible vision of the stripes of Old Glory
transformed into wriggling snakes and the stars poison-
ous heads lifted to strike at an agonized black man writh-
ing in the midst of them.

"Now that one theah is a new exploitation in geog-
raphy that will sure stand remembering," commented
Ginger.

"What about this story business?" demanded Banjo.
"Ain't noneathem cannibals gwine tell anything?"

Ray kicked his shins and whispered: "Watch out the
patron doesn't hear you. It'll start a roughhouse and

BANJO 118

spoil everything and you know he hasn't much time for
you."

Banjo growled a low-down defiance. "Well, I don't
care a raw damn who don't want to tell anything, pardner.
I gotta personal piece to tell without any trimmings
atall and I don't care ef you publish it in the Book of
Life itself and hand it to Big Massa as a prayer."

"You ain't got any shame, not to mention race pride,
for you don't understand that," said Goosey.

A discharged Senegalese sergeant told a weird tale
of his shooting up a barracks in Syria, killing a white
private and an adjutant and escaping on an officer's
mount into Turkey. From there he negotiated with his
captain, who permitted him to return without standing
trial or punishment.

A smiling scepticism greeting him blandly from all
faces, he glanced round humorously, remarking: "You
don't believe me, eh ? You don't believe." And he burst
into laughter.

"I'll tell one of the African folk tales we know at
home," said Ray. . . .

"Once upon a time there was a woman who lived in a
pretty house in the midst of a blooming garden. It was
the prettiest house and the best garden in the land. The
woman was very old, unmarried, but she was stout and
fresh. She had a stunted little girl in the house waiting
on her. People said the girl was her grandniece. They
said the grandaunt had bewitched the girl and taken her
growth and youth for herself.

"The little girl's mother had died when she was a child
and left her to her grandaunt to bring up. The girl
had had a tiny, tiny red mole on her throat, which her
mother had tattooed on it as a charm. The mole was
made of blood that came from the heart of a crocodile,
and so long as it was on the girl's throat she would be

u9 STORY-TELLING

happy and young and beautiful and never want for any-
thing. But when the girl's mother died the grandaunt
hoodooed the mole away and fixed it on her own throat.

"Before the girl's mother died she had pledged her
to be married to the son of a chief in another land.
And when the son reached marrying age, the dead mother
appeared to him in a dream and told him what the grand-
aunt had done.

"The great Witch God gave back to the spirit of the
dead mother the power that she had had on earth. And
she transformed the young chief into a beautiful bird
of many colors, and he flew to the pretty house in the
blooming garden. He flew three times around the house
and pecked on the door, and, the little girl opening it, he
flew into the room where the old aunt was sleeping, and
pecked the red mole from her throat and flew right out.

"And when the grandaunt woke she was frightened to
see herself all shriveled up, wrinkled, and gray-haired.
She looked at her throat and the mole was gone. She
accused the little girl of taking it. The girl said she
had not touched the mole.

"The grandaunt said she would put her through the
trial by water. And she took the girl down to the Dry
River. She put the girl in the middle of the river bed
while she stood on the bank and worked her magic.

"And the girl sang, wailing:

" 'Aunty I didn't do it,
Aunty I didn't do it,
Aunty I didn't do it oh. . . .
Water, stay, oh!'

"The grandaunt replied:

" 'My pickney, I never say't was you,
My pickney, I never say't was you,
My pickney I never say't was you oh. . . .
Water, come, oh!'

BANJO 120

"The river rose to the girl's ankles. She sang again
and her aunt replied. The water rose to her knees.
The singing continued. The water rose to her waist.
The girl's singing grew weaker. The grandaunt's reply
grew stronger. The water was at the girl's breast.
She sang faintly:

" 'Aunty I didn't do it. . . .
Water, stay, oh!'

"The grandaunt replied fiercely:
"'Water, come, oh!'

"Now the water was at the girl's throat and the
grandaunt shrieked aloud, writhing her shriveled body
like a black serpent:

"'Water, come, oh!'

"And the river roared, flooding over the girl and
sweeping her away. Far down its course the grandaunt
saw a crocodile slip from the bank and gobble up the
girl. And the grandaunt's bones rattled with her thin
witch laughter of joy.

" 'She stole the crocodile's blood and the crocodile
swallowed her up.'

"But when the grandaunt returned to her home, the
house and the garden had disappeared and the people
called her a bad witch and drove her from the land.
She went wandering far away. And one beautiful sky-
blue day the old withered thing came into a new country,
and suddenly she found herself before the old garden
with the pretty house. And standing at the gate was
her grandniece, now a beautiful black princess, with the
young chief, her husband, beside her.

"Hardly could the grandaunt recognize the stunted
girl in the woman before her. But the princess said:

121 STORY-TELLING

'Aunt, you thought I was dead, but the crocodile was my
husband.'

"The old thing fell on her knees and cried: 'Give
me to the leopards, my child, for I was a bad relative to
you/

"The princess replied: 'No, aunt, we're flesh and blood
of the same family and you will come and live in this
house and garden all the rest of your days.' "

When Ray had finished, nearly all the Senegalese
wanted to tell a native story.

"We have the same kind of stories," said the ser-
geant. "We have the trial by water and fire. . . . Let
me tell a story."

The sergeant said:

"Leopard was a terror all over the land. He was
always setting traps for the other animals and getting
the best of them. And the other animals were so afraid
of him, they couldn't move about with any freedom. They
called secret meetings to make plans to get rid of leopard,
but they were no match for him.

"One day leopard was trotting proudly along over
the country when, passing under a tree, he heard a sweet
musical sound above. Leopard stopped and looked up.
He scrambled up the tree and found a hole out in the
main limb from which the sound was coming. He put
his hand in the hole and something grabbed it.

" 'Who's holding me?' leopard cried.

" 'Me, spinner,' a voice replied from the hole.

" 'All right, spin let me see.'

"And suddenly leopard felt himself going round and
round, round and round, until he was almost out of
breath when he was let go hurtling through the air, to
fall yards away in a clump of bushes. There leopard
lay stunned for some time. When he was revived he

BANJO 122

carefully marked the exact spot where he had fallen.
Then he went off to a blacksmith and ordered six steel
prongs, stout and sharp.

"Leopard returned to the place to which he had been
hurled and set up the steel prongs there. He went back
under the tree and waited for the animals that passed
by singly. First came bear. Leopard told bear that
there was sweet stuff up there in the tree, and sent
him up after it. When bear's hand got caught, leopard
told him to say just what he had said. And bear was
spun round and round and sent whirling through the air
to drop bellyways upon the steel prongs, and was in-
stantly killed. Leopard ran to pick up the carcass and
hide it away in the bushes.

"Cow passed by and also met his doom. Dog, pig,
goat, rabbit, donkey, cat, gazelle — a troop of animals
— all went the way of bear and cow. Then monkey
came strutting along. Monkey had watched the whole
affair from his perch in a treetop, and monkey was
known as the one animal that could outwit leopard.

"When he came up to leopard he greeted him casually
and was going by. But leopard stopped him.

" 'Hi, monkey, there's sweet stuff up there !'

" 'Where?' monkey asked.

" 'Up there in the tree. Don't you hear the music?
Go on up and see. There's a hole full of sweet stuff.
I tasted it.'

"Monkey ran nimbly up the tree and, leaping from
branch to branch and looking round him, he declared he
could not find any hole. Impatiently leopard climbed
the tree and pointed to the hole. 'It is there!'

"Monkey turned backsideway and curled up his tail
against the hole. 'I don't see it.'

"Leopard leaped over by monkey, shoved him aside,
and pointing in the hole said, 'There it is !'

i23 STORY-TELLING

"Monkey gave leopard a hard push. Leopard's hand
went way down deep in the hole and was grabbed.
Monkey ran cackling down the tree, his tail high in the
air.

" 'Oh, my good monkey,' leopard wailed, 'something
got me.'

" 'What thing?' monkey demanded.

" 'Oh, I don't know. Some terrible thing. Some evil
thing.'

" 'What is the name of the thing?'

" 'I don't know.'

"The conversation stopped and monkey frisked around
the tree, striking his face with his hand in mimic mood.
At last leopard spoke again:

" 'Oh, good monkey, out yonder in that clump of bush
there are some prongs set up. Won't you go out there
and pull them up for me ?'

"Monkey went and fixed the prongs more securely in
their place. Leopard saw them gleaming sharply out
there in the sun and he groaned.

"At last monkey ran up the tree and bawled, 'Who's
holding me?'

"Leopard began to howl.

" 'Me, spinner,' replied the voice from the hole.

" 'Spin let me see !' monkey bawled.

"And leopard was whirled round and round and sent
flying through the air to land on the steel prongs.
Monkey uncovered the pile of dead victims and called
all the other animals for a big feast. Leopard they
skinned, and kept the hide as a trophy. And all the
animals made monkey king over them and the land was
happy again."

"Now lemme tell you-all one story," said Bugsy.
"One time down home in Alabam' there was a white

BANJO 124

man's nigger whose name was Sam. He was a house
darky and he was right there on the right side a the boss
and the missus. But Sam wasn't noneatall satisfied to
be the bestest darky foh the boss folks. He aimed to
be the biggest darky ovah all the rest a darkies. So
Sam started in to profitsy and done claimed he could
throw the fust light on anything that was going to
happen.

"Sam had some sort of a way-back befoh-slavery con-
nection with thunder and lightning and he could predick
when it was gwine to rain. But all the same he couldn't
put himself ovah the field niggers, 'causen there was a
confidential fellah among them who was doing a wonder-
ful business in hoodoo stuff. That other conjure man
had Sam going something crazy.

"And so, to make the biggest impression on the boss
folks and the plantation folks Sam started in hiding
things all ovah the place and then challenge the other
conjure man to find them. And when the other fellah
couldn't find the things Sam would predick where they
was.

"He found the guinea pig in the baby's cradle. He
found the buck rabbit eating cheese in the pantry. The
cock was missing from the hencoop and he found him
scratching with the cat in the barn. Ole Mammy Joan
lost her bandanna and Sam found it in the buggy house
under the coachman's seat. She couldn't noneatall sleep
a nights, and he found a big rat done made a nest in her;
rush baid.

"Sam's fohsightedness made him the biggest darky
evah with the boss folks and the black folks, and the
news about him spread all ovah the country. And one
day a big boss of another plantation corned to visit the
boss. And the boss bet the other a bale of cotton that
his nigger Sam could find anything that he hid away.

i25 STORY-TELLING

"The other boss took up the bet and had Sam blind-
folded and shut up in one a the outhouses, and he made
the darkies bring out one a them great big ole-time plan-
tation pot. And he caught a coon and put it under the
pot. And then they let Sam out and the boss asks him
to tell what was under the pot.

" 'I feel a presumonition not to predick today, boss/
Sam said.

" 'But you gotta/ the boss said. 'I done put a bet on
you and I know you can tell anything.*

Sam shook his head and, looking at the pot, said,
'This coon is caught today/

" 'Hurrah !' the boss cried. 'I knowed mah nigger
could tell anything.' And he let the coon out from under
the pot.

"At first Sam was kinder downhearted and scared.
But soon as he saw the coon he got his head up and
chested himself and started to strut off just so big and
just that proud.

"And from that time the American darky started in
playing coon and the white man is paying him for it."

"And who is paying the Wesht Indian foh playing
monkey-chaser ?" Banjo asked.

"Hi, nigger, what you come picking me up for? I
thought you said you was francais!"

"That's a white man's story," was Goosey's comment.

"I don't care a black damn whose it is. It's a fine
story," said Ray.

"I'll tell you a real man story, pardner," said Banjo,
"that ain't no monkey-coon affair."

"Shoot," said Ray.

Banjo said: "It's about a cracker that I runned into
in Paree when I was in the Kenadian army and I was
there on leave. He runned into me in a cafe on the
Grands Boulevards. He looked mah uniform ovah, and

BANJO 126

although he seed what it was he asked me what I was,
and I said, 'Kenadian soldier.'

"He ups and asks me ef I would have a drink and I
did. And then he invited me ef I didn't feel any per-
sonal objection to take a turn round gay Paree with
him. I told that cracker that I was nevah yet objection-
able to a good thing. Man, he was a money cracker
as sure as gold ain't no darky's color, and he was no
emancipated Yankee but a way-back-down-home-in-Dixie
peck. That baby took me into the swellest cafes in
Paree and wouldn't order nothing but the dearest drinks.
And when we had drink and drunk and was one sure-
enough pair a drinking fools, he said to me says he:
'Bud, we'll stick the whole day and night out together
and if we c'n find any place in this damn city of the
frogs that won't serve you-all, we'll wreck it together
and I'll pay the damages and give you a thousand-franc
note.'"

"The ole bugger! He said that?" cried Goosey.

"He said nothing else, believe me."

Banjo continued: "That young cracker was jest lousy
with money. When he started to pay the first drinks he
pulled out on me a wad of dollars as thick as a deck a
cards. He shoved it back in his pocket as if he had done
made a mistake and pulled out a pocketful a French
bills. All high ones: — fifty, hundred, five hundred, thou-
sand. Well, fellahs, we went to the swellest part a
Paree to eat, a place called Chaunsly. And we went into
a restaurant where only dooks and lawds and high sasiety
guys ate. There was a man let us in all dressed up like
the Prince of Wales on parade "

"You nevah saw no Prince a Wales, nigger," Bugsy
cut in.

"Yes, I did, too. He reviewed our regiment two
times. All the soldiers them was crazy about him."

127 STORY-TELLING

"And what does he look like?" asked Bugsy.

"Looks like — the Prince of Wales — why, he's A num-
ber one — a sweet potato in the skin."

"Ise traveled as much as you, Banjo, but you done
seen a tall lot a high life that I only know in pictures,"
said Malty in a tone of admiration.

Banjo carried on: "We had six mens all dressed up
in mourning like white gen'men going to a ball to wait
on us. Man! I ain't nevah seen no feed spread like that
'cep'n' when I was working on a millionare yacht. And
after we ate we jumped into an atmobile for Mont-
martre. And we sure did do Montmartre some: —
Paradese, Tabarin, Cha'noir, Mohlang Rouge. And in
every one a them there was darkies with ofays. But
that cracker was game. In every bar we went in he
treated every darky that would have a drink on him.

"We finished up the night in one a the swellest pullu-
luxe joints in Paree. Man! I had everything befoh
and ovah me. It was just like it had been in all them
other places. They was all foh me. And that young
cracker wouldn't miss a thing "

"No !" Bugsy was pop-eyed.

"Not a thing, I tell you."

Banjo went on: "He was one thoroughmost-going
baby, and jest so nice and nacheral about it as you
makem. I tell you straight that if the Mason and Dixie
line and that pale skin didn't deevide us, I wouldn't want
a better pal to travel around with. I tell you again he
didn't miss anything that was paid for and there wasn't
anybody else paying but him for everything that was
had. Yessah, we-all flopped together, I ain't telling you
no lie, either, and imagine what you want to, but there
wasn't no moh than one baid, neither. And befoh he
left the next morning he hand me a thousand-franc note
and he asted me who I think was the greatest people

BANJO I2s

in the wul'. And I answered back I think it was the
French. And he said no they wasn't, that niggers was
the greatest people "

4 'Did he say niggers?" cried Goosey.

"I should say not. He said 'colored people.' "

"Well, I wish you would all learn to say 'colored' and
'Negroes' and drop 'darky' and 'niggers,' " said Goosey.
"If we don't respect ourselves as a race we can't expect
white people to respect us."

"It's all right among ourselves," said Banjo.

"No, it isn't. We got to drop those slavery names
among ourselves, too."

Banjo began whistling "Shake That Thing."
Abruptly he stopped and turned to Ray. "What do you
say about my story for a big write-up, pardner?"

"First-rate."

"All right, then. Go to it and usem all you want."

"I've got a personal-experience one, too," said Ray,
"not nearly as rich as yours, but I'll tell it if you fellows
want to hear." They did.

Ray said: "I was in Paris myself about three or four
years after Banjo's time, I guess. And it was just the
same kind of hand-to-mouth business living there as
here. I used to hang around the bohemian quarter
where there were many English and American joy-birds
and bohemian high-brows talking art and books.

"My own inclination was for the less cosmopolitan
parts of the city. But I was broke. And Americans are
the most generous people in the world when they are out
on a tipsy holiday. All you fellows know that and that
some of them will do things for you abroad that they
could dare not do at home."

"That's the truth said," said Banjo. "A nigger can
often bum a raise out of a pierson from Dixie because he'd
be ashame' for a nigger to think he ain't got nothing."

1*9 STORY-TELLING

"Well," continued Ray, "I picked up a little change
among the Americans and got invited to some swell feed-
ing. But that didn't happen every day. Sometimes my
temper turned suddenly bilious and I wouldn't accept an
invitation to eat, because I couldn't enjoy the food with
the party that was paying for it. I remember one day I
forced myself against my feelings and nearly puked in a
high-class eating-joint. Then sometimes I would put in a
half a day boozing with a jolly gang of good fellows
and expecting to be asked for a feed. And they'd all
ease off at the end and ignore me. Some bohemians
are like that, you know. But you all know it, too. They'll
drink up a fortune with you, but they won't buy you a
meal, and if you ask them for one they'll turn you down
as a panhandler, no good for bohemian company.

"With all a that and my kind of temperament, I knew
that Paris was no business for me unless I could find a
job. One of the Latin-American artists was my friend
and he got me a job to pose. It wasn't so easy to find
black bodies for that in Paris. I was to pose at a school
where there were many English and American students,
mostly females. I had to pose in a very interesting
tableau — standing naked on a little platform with a stout
long staff in my hand and a pretty Parisienne in the nude
crouched at the base.

"The woman who owned the studio was a Nordic of
Scandinavia. The artist by whom I was recommended
said that she was worried about engaging me, because
there were many Americaines in the class. They were
the best-paying students, and, as I belonged to a savage
race, she didn't know if I could behave.

"My artist vouched for me. And so I went to work,
putting myself rigidly on good behaviour. Everything
went along as nice as pie. Personally I felt no tempta-
tion to prevent me from being the best-behaving person

BANJO 130

in the studio. All the students, strong and fair, came
and measured me all over to get the right perspective,
not hesitating to touch me when they wanted to place me
in a better light or position.

"The posing went along famously. Soon the students
began making polite conversation with me. They were
all fierce moderns. Some of them asked if I had seen
the African Negro sculptures. I said yes and that I
liked them. They wanted to know what quality I liked
in them. I told them that what moved me most about
the African sculpture was the feeling of perfect self-
mastery and quiet self-assurance that they gave. They
seemed interested in what I had to say and talked a lot
about primitive simplicity and color and 'significant
form' from Cezanne to Picasso. Their naked savage
was quickly getting on to civilized things. ... I got
extra appointments for private posing, which paid bet-
ter than the school. . . .

"Then one beautiful day I forgot students and art and
all in the middle of my pose, and was lost away back
in Harlem, right there at the Sheba Palace, in a sea of
forms of such warmth and color that never was seen
in any Paris studio. And — good night! My staff went
clattering to the floor and it was refuge for me."

"What happened ?" demanded Banjo.

"Nothing. . . . But I decided that only the other sex
was qualified for posing in the nude."

While Ray was talking, two white beach fellows en-
tered the cafe.

"Hello, there!" cried Ginger. "Which one a the bum
broad youse running away from now?"

"None a them this time, me man," replied the smaller
of the two, going to shake hands with Ginger. He was
a young fellow with a mischievous boyish face and a
bush of black hair all tousled. He had on an old and

131 STORY-TELLING

well-frayed seaweed-green jersey and a pair of once-black
pants, now burned red by the sun, eaten up in the bottom
and creased a thousand ways. He was of the breed of
white vagabonds that prefer the company of black men
and are apt to go native in tropical lands. He had a
frank, free manner of approach that made the black boys
accept him without any reserve. He had chummed with
Ginger the summer before on the beach, and had disap-
peared sometime during the winter.

"Then where was you all this time? In jail?" Ginger
asked.

"You guessed it first shot," said the white, "only it
wasn't in this damned frog hole. Was over there," he
jerked his thumb toward the boy, "in Africa — Algeria."

"In the A-rabs country?" said Ginger. "How did you
likem?"

"Not me," the Irish fellow brought his palms up as a
sign of disapproval. "Them babies over there ain't no-
ways like you-all. Be Christ, they ain't got no religion
and won't ever have any, it seems to me, so long as they
believe that Mohammed is the law and that Jesus ain't
born yet, and that some day he's going to be born, if
ever he is, of a white man. Oh, Lord! if I didn't have
a hell of a time in that country. I stowed away over
there, thinking I'd meet up with fellows like you-all,
and I found there nothing but red ones that wasn't hu-
man at all. And then I landed in prison and the white
ones was worse. They wouldn't even give me water to
drink. I was burning up all inside and I felt like I'd
catch fire and blaze, for I'd been drinking hard. For
two days I never had a drop of water. I cried and
begged to see the chief warden, and when he did come
at last and I begged him for water, he spit in my face."

"Good God!" exclaimed Ray.

"Yes, be Christ he did!" said the Irish boy, "and he

BANJO; 132

wasn't no A-rab, neither; he was a white man. I'll never
make another beach in any of the frogs' country again."

"French or English, they are all the same under this
system," said the other white. He was English. His
clothes were good. He was returning from Piraeus,
where he had been paid off from a Greek ship and was
now being repatriated home. His home-going thoughts
were not happy. He had been an out-of-work before
joining the foreign ship and was probably returning to
join that army. He was for the left in politics and had
been in jail for extremist agitation.

"I was beaten up in the fice at Pentonville Prison,"
he said. "There's little difference anywhere under the
system."

"I could better stand up to the Englishman's fist in me
face than the Frenchman's spit in me face," said the
Irish lad. "It's better to taste me own blood in me
mouth than another man's spit."

XL Everybody Doing It

RAY had put on his carefully-tended suit for special
occasions to go to an agency on the Canebiere, the
great Main Street of Marseilles. The broad short
stretch of thoroughfare was in gala dress, just as crazy
as could be.

A Dollar Line boat, and a British ship from the Far
East, had come into port that morning and their passen-
gers had swelled the human stream of the ever-overflow-
ing Canebiere. Conspicuous on the pavement before a
tourist agency of international fame, a bloated, livid-
skinned Egyptian solicited all the male tourists that
passed by.

uGu-ide, gentlemen? Will you have a gu-ide?" he
insinuated in a tone of the color of mustard and the smell
of Camembert. "Show you all the sights of Marseilles.
Hot stuff in the quarter. Tableaux vivants and blue
cinema."

Other guides were working the crowd, Spanish,
French, Italian, Greek — an international gang of them,
but none so outstanding as this oleaginous mass out of
Egypt with his heavy, eunuch-like face with its drooping
fish eyes that seemed unable to look up straight at any-
thing.

There were a number of touring cars filled with sight-
seers. Cocottes, gigolos, touts, sailors, soldiers every-
where. The cocottes passed in pairs and singly, attrac-
tive in their striking frocks and fancy shoes. The Arab-

133

BANJO 134

black girl in orange went by arm in arm with a white
girl wearing rose. They smiled at Ray, standing on the
corner.

Brazenly the gigolos made their signs for the delecta-
tion of the tourists. Such signs as monkeys in the zoo
delight in when women, fascinated, are watching them.

Two gentlemen in golf clothes, very English-looking
and smoking cigarettes, were spending a long time before
a shop window, apparently absorbed in a plaster-of-Paris
advertisement of a little dog with its nozzle to a fun-
nel. It was a reproduction of the popular American
painting that assails the eye in all the shopping centers
of the world; under it was the legend: La voix de son
Mditre. The gentlemen were intent on it. A short dis-
tance from them were two sailors with large crimson
pommels on their jauntily fixed caps, extra-fine blue capes,
and their hands thrust deep in their pockets. Glancing
furtively at the gentlemen, who were tongue-licking their
lips in a curious, gentlemanly way, one of the sailors ap-
proached with a convenient cigarette butt. As they were
exchanging lights, two passing cocottes bounced pur-
posely into them and kept going, hip-shimmying and
smirking, looking behind. . . . Nothing doing.

A small party of English shouldered Ray against the
corner, talking animatedly in that overdone accent they
call the Oxford. Ray remarked again, as he often had
before, how the pronunciation of some of the words, like
"there" "here" and "where," was similar to that of the
Southern Negro.

Two policemen were standing near and as the party
passed one of them spat and said, "Les sale Anglais."
Ray started and, looking from the policeman who had
spewed out his salival declaration of contempt to the Eng-
lish group crossing the street, he grinned. Just the eve-
ning before (he had read in the morning newspaper) an

i35 EVERYBODY DOING IT

Englishwoman and her escort were nearly lynched by a
theater crowd. Police intervened to save them. The
woman had tried to push her way too hastily through
the crowd while talking English. Commenting on it,
the local paper had said such incidents would not happen
if the post-war policy of the Anglo-Saxons were not to
treat France as if she were a colony.

In Paris and elsewhere tourists were having a hot
time of it. The franc was tobogganing and the Anglo-
Saxon nations, according to the French press, were re-
sponsible for that as well. The panic in the air had
reached even Marseilles, the most international place
in the country. Up till yesterday these very journals
had been doping the unthinking literate mob with pages
of peace talk. Today they were feeding the same hordes
with war. And to judge from the excitement in the air
the mob was as ready for it as the two white apes of po-
licemen standing on the corner.

Ray grinned again, showing all his teeth, and a girl
across the street, thinking it was for her, smiled at him.
But he was grinning at the civilized world of nations,
all keeping their tiger's claws sharp and strong under
the thin cloak of international amity and awaiting the
first favorable opportunity to spring. During his pas-
sage through Europe it had been an illuminating ex-
perience for him to come in contact with the mind of
the average white man. A few words would usually
take him to the center of a guarded, ancient treasure of
national hates.

In conversation he sometimes posed as British, some-
times as American, depending upon his audience. There
was no posing necessary with the average Frenchman
because he takes it without question that a black man
under French civilization is better off than he would be

BANJO 136

under any other social order in the world. Sometimes,
on meeting a French West Indian, Ray would say he
was American, and the other, like his white compatriot,
could not resist the temptation to be patronizing.

"We will treat you right over here ! It's not like Amer-

ica."

Yet often when he was in public with one of these
black elites who could speak a little English, Ray would
be asked to speak English instead of French. Upon de-
manding why, the answer would invariably be, "Because
they will treat us better and not as if we were Sene-
galese. "

Ray had undergone a decided change since he had left
America. He enjoyed his role of a wandering black
without patriotic or family ties. He loved to pose as this
or that without really being any definite thing at all. It
was amusing. Sometimes the experience of being pa-
tronized provided food for thoughtful digestion. Some-
times it was very embarrassing and deprived an emotion
of its significance.

Nevertheless, he was not unaware that his position as
a black boy looking on the civilized scene was a unique
one. He was having a good grinning time of it. Italians
against French, French against Anglo-Saxons, English
against Germans, the great Daily Mail shrieking like a
mad virago that there were still Germans left who were
able to swill champagne in Italy when deserving English
gentlemen could not afford to replenish their cellars.
. . . Oh it was a great civilization indeed, too entertain-
ing for any savage ever to have the feeling of boredom.

The evening before, an American acquaintance had
remarked to Ray that when he had come to Europe he
had cut loose from all the back-home strings and had
come wanting to love it. But Europe had taught him

i37 EVERYBODY DOING IT »

to be patriotic; it had taught him that he was an Ameri-
can.

He was a jolly nice fellow with French blood from his
mother's line, and after two years of amusing himself
in the European scene he was returning to America to
settle down to the business of marriage. Ray could see
what he was trying to express, but he could not feel it.
First, because he had never yet indulged in any illusions \
about any species of the civilized mammal, and second, /
because his was not a nature that would let his appetite /
for the fruit of life be spoiled by the finding of a worm
at the core of one apple or more.

The sentiment of patriotism was not one of Ray's I
possessions, perhaps because he was a child of derac- \
inated ancestry. To him it was a poisonous seed that
had, of course, been planted in his child's mind, but
happily, not having any traditional soil to nourish it, it
had died out with other weeds of the curricula of educa-
tion in the light of mature thought.

It seemed a most unnatural thing to him for a man to
love a nation — a swarming hive of human beings barter-
ing, competing, exploiting, lying, cheating, battling, sup-
pressing, and killing among themselves; possessing, too,
the faculty to organize their villainous rivalries into a
monstrous system for plundering weaker peoples.

Man loves individuals. Man loves things. Man loves\
places. And the vagabond lover of life finds individuals \
and things to love in many places and not in any one na-^J
tion. Man loves places and no one place, for the earth,
like a beautiful wanton, puts on a new dress to fascinate
him wherever he may go. A patriot loves not his nation, *
but the spiritual meannesses of his life of which he has
created a frontier wall to hide the beauty of other hori-
zons.

BANJO 138

So . . . Ray had fallen into one of his frequent fits
of contemplation there on the corner, alone with his mind
and the traffic of life surging around him, when he was
tapped on the shoulder and addressed by the smaller
Britisher of Taloufa's shirt-tail night.

Ray had learned more about the two friends since
that entertaining night. The colonial was a careless,
roving sort of fellow, ever ready for anything with a
touch of novelty that was suggested to him. Yet he
seemed to be devoid of any capacity for real enjoyment
or deep distaste. He apparently existed for mere unex-
citing drifting, a purposeless, live-for-the-moment, neg-
ative person.

The initiative of planning for both of them rested
with his friend, who was English-born. Both had been
in the war. The Englishman had a small face with a
tight expression. His lips were remarkably thin and
compressed, and they twitched, but so imperceptibly that
a casual observer would not notice it. He had not been
wounded, but had been a prisoner and the experience had
left him a little neurotic, and probably more interesting.
He liked jazz music, and he liked to hear Negroes play
it.

The pair had told Ray that they were just bums. He
would not believe it, thinking that they were well-to-do
poseurs plumbing low-down bohemian life. But they
soon convinced him that it was true. Quite young, they
had been called for service during the last year of the
war, and, now that it was over, they either could not
find a permanent interest in life or could not bring them-
selves to settle down. Whatever it was, they were gentle-
men panhandlers. They had bummed all over conti-
nental Europe — Naples, Genoa, Barcelona, Bordeaux,
Antwerp, Hamburg, Berlin, and Paris.

Since the night when Banjo had played for them they

139 EVERYBODY DOING IT

had gone over to Toulon to meet a ship coming from
Australia, and had cleaned up twenty pounds panhandling
and showing passengers through the bordel quarter of
that interesting town of matelots.

Strangely, they preferred the great commercial ports
and cities to the popular tourist resorts. They were not
interested in crooked games. Like the beach boys, they
were honest bums.

Ray admired the Britisher's well-fitting clothes.

"It's the only way to get the jack," he said. "Wear
good clothes and speak like a gentleman. They'll give
you either a real raise or nothing at all, but they won't
treat you like a beggar. The Americans are pretty good.
And you can tap an Englishman abroad, if you take him
the right way, when you couldn't at home."

At that moment a big beefy Englishman went by and
Ray's friend said: "Just a minute. I'm going to get
him."

He caught up with the man on the opposite corner.
The tourist was visibly embarrassed as his compatriot
solicited him, and, rather avoiding looking in his face,
he handed out a five-franc note. The proffered money
hung suspended in air, the gentleman panhandler, not
deigning to take it, coldly pressing his need of a more
substantial amount. Something he said made the big
man turn all puffy red in the face, and glancing hastily
at the younger man from head to foot, he took from his
pocketbook a pound note and handed it to him. The
young man took it and thanked him in a politely reserved
manner.

Rejoining Ray, he vented his scorn : "The big bastard.
Tried to give me five francs." His funny slit of a lip
twitched nervously. "Come and have a drink with me,"
he said.

BANJO 140

They turned down the Canebiere. An old tune was
ringing in Ray's head.

"Everybody's Doing It. . . ."

It was the song-and-dance that had tickled him so
wonderfully that first year he had landed in America.
Talk about "Charleston" and "Black Bottom 1" They're
all right for exercise, but for a jazzing jig, when a black
boy and a gal can get right up together and do that
rowdy thing, "Charlestons" and "Black Bottoms" are
a long way behind the "Turkey Trot." . . .

Great big dancing-hall over the grocery store in the
barracks town. Day laborers, porters, black students,
black soldiers, brown sporting-girls swaying and reeling
so close together, turkey-trotting, bunny-hugging, bear-
and-dog walking "That Thing" and the delirious black
boys singing and playing:

"Everybody's doing it. . . .
Everybody's doing it now. . . ."

Ray and the Britisher took a table on a cafe terrace
at the corner of the Rue de la Republique and the Quai
du Port. Down the Canebiere the traffic bore like a
flooded river to pile up against the bar of the immense
horseshoe (on which rested the weight of the city) and
flow out on either side of it.

The scene was a gay confusion — peddlers with gaudy
bagatelles; Greek and Armenian venders of cacahuettes
and buns; fishermen crying shell-fish; idling boys in pro-
letarian blue wearing vivid cache-col and caps; long-
armed Senegalese soldiers in khaki, some wearing the red
fez ; zouaves in striking Arab costumes ; surreptitious sou
gamblers with their dice stands ; a strong mutilated man
in tights stunting; excursion boats with tinted signs and
pennants rocking thick against each other at the moor-

i4i EVERYBODY DOING IT

ings — everything massed pell-mell together in a great
gorgeous bowl.

A waiter brought them two large cool glasses of
orangeade. While they were enjoying it one of the
many sidewalk-feature girls stopped by their table with
a little word for the Englishman.

"Fiche-moi la paixf" he shot at her.

The girl shrugged and went off, working her hips.

"Bloody wench! Because I was with her last night
she tries to get familiar now. She wouldn't dare do it
in London.' '

"Don't say!" said Ray. "Why, back home in Amer-
ica we lift our hats to such as exist."

"That's one reason why I don't like democracies."

"Is that how you feel about them?" Ray chuckled.
"I can't go with you. Ordinarily I would like to treat
those girls like anybody else, but they won't let you.
They are too class-conscious."

After the cocotte came Banjo.

"Hello!" said Ray. "How's the plugging?"

"Fine and dandy, pardner. I got the whole wul'
going my way. Look at me !"

"Perfection, kid."

Banjo was in wonderful form in his cocoa-colored
Provencal suit, the steel-gray Australian felt hat he had
bought in Sydney, the yellow scarf hanging down his
front, and full-square up-at-the-heel. Banjo had struck
it right again.

The blues had bitten Taloufa badly after his praise-
worthy little affair of race conservation had turned out
so disastrously and he had left soon after for England.
But before he went Banjo had persuaded him to redeem
his suit from the Mont de Piete and had "borrowed"
a little cash from him until they should meet again — an

BANJO 142

eventuality that was taken as a matter of course in the
beach boys' and seamen's life.

"Sit down and have a drink," said the white.

"Time is in a hurry with me now, chief," replied
Banjo. "I'm going down to the Dollar Line pier.
Theah's a boat in. What about you, pardner? Going?
I been looking foh you. The fellahs am waiting foh
me down at Joliette."

"Sure thing I'll go," said Ray. "Want to come?" he
asked his white friend.

"No. It's too far. It's the farthest dock down. Have
a drink with us, Banjo, before you go. Let's go to the
little cafe in that side street up there. They'll serve us
quicker at the bar."

The three of them entered the cafe hurriedly, talking.
They had three glasses of vin blanc. The Englishman
paid with a five-franc note. When he received his change
he told the barwoman that it was not right.

"Comment?" she asked.

"Comment? Because day before yesterday here I
paid five sous less for a glass of vin blanc. And I know
the price hasn't gone up since."

"The pound and the dollar have, though," Ray
grinned.

"Maybe, but I'm not going to pay for banditry in
high places."

"It's always we who pay heaviest for that," said Ray.

"We?"

"Yes, we the poor, the vagabonds, the bums of life.
You said you were one; that's why I say we."

The woman made the change right, saying that she
had been mistaken, and the boys left the bar.

"Them's all sou-crazy, these folkses," said Banjo.

"It's a cheap trick," said the Briton. "I didn't care
about the few sous, but it was the principle of the thing."

i43 EVERYBODY DOING IT

"You English certainly love to play with that word
'principle,' " said Ray.

The white laughed slightly, reddening around the
ears. "These people make you pay a V Anglaise every
time they hear you talk English," he said. "I don't like
to be always paying for that. It's irritating. And I
irritate them, too, in revenge, letting them know they
are cheating. Maybe one cause of it is that these little
businesses are always changing hands. About a year ago
I was in a little bar behind the Bourse. Six months
later I saw the proprietor at Toulon, where he had
bought another bar, and the other day I saw him at
Nice, where he had just taken over a third after selling
out at Toulon. I prefer going to an honest bourgeois
brasserie. And even then you've got to look out for
the waiters if they think you're a greenhorn. Just yes-
terday one of them brought my friend change for a fifty
after he had given him a hundred-franc note. My friend
doesn't speak French, and when I called the bluff he
had it all ready for me right on the tip of his tongue
like that bistro woman: 'Pardon. I've made a mis-
take!'"

Curiously, the song kept singing in Ray's head:

"Everybody's doing it,
Everybody's doing it. . . ."

"I get along with the little bistros, all right," said
Ray. "They take me for Senegalese and treat me right.
But whenever I'm with fellows speaking English they've
got to pay for it just like you. I never make any trouble
when the others pay, especially American fellows. They
don't know, the price is ridiculously cheap to them, com-
ing from a dry country. But when I've got to pay
for it, I kick like hell. I'll be damned if I'm going to be
a sucker for these hoggish petits commerqants. I know

BANJO 144

it's the dollar complex these people have that makes
them like that, but I'm no dollar baby. I don't ever see
enough francs, much less dollars. And they can get
bloody insulting sometimes when you call their hand.
For instance, I found out the woman who did my laundry
was overcharging Banjo and the boys whenever they
could afford to have their clothes done. The next time
they were getting their laundry I went with them to
straighten it out, and she got mad and shouted, 'Dollah,
dollah,' and refused to do any more for us. What the
hell do we boys know about dollars?"

"The only time they'll lose anything is when they do
it to insult you," said the white. "They lose more than
they gain by such pettiness. Some months ago we picked
up a couple of toffs and they took us for a spree down
the coast. We stayed a little time in Antibes. One
night my friend telephoned me from a cafe in the square
and the proprietor himself told the waiter to charge him
two francs. He happened to mention it and I knew
the cost was half a franc. The next morning I went
and asked the fat old thing why he had overcharged my
friend. He tried to make out that it was a double call,
which wasn't true, of course, and would only have
amounted to a franc in any case. I left it like that. It
was enough for me to see the proprietor in an embar-
rassing position. I get a devilish lot of fun out of them
and their sous. And that's why I am always correcting
their subtraction and addition. But of course we never
went back to that cafe while we stayed in Antibes."

"I wish they wouldn't figure against us poor black
boys when we speak English," said Ray. "The trouble
'is you Europeans make no color distinction — when it is
a matter of the color of our money."

"You mean the French," said the young man, his

i45 EVERYBODY DOING IT

Anglo-Saxon pride suddenly bursting forth. "You don't
find anybody in England playing such penny tricks."

"Oh, well, you've got a different method, that's all,"
said Ray. "I've got a very definite opinion about it all.
When I was in England I always felt myself in an atmos-
phere of grim, long-headed honesty — honesty because it
was the best business policy in the long run. You felt
it was a little hard on the English soul. It made it as
bleak as a London fog and you felt it was an atmosphere
that could chill to the bone anybody who didn't have a
secure living. I wouldn't want to be broke and be on the
bum there for a day, and you wouldn't, either, I guess."

"You bet I wouldn't," the young man laughed, "judg-
ing by where I am now."

"In America it's different," Ray continued. "I didn't (
sense any soul-destroying honesty there. What I felt |
was an awful big efficiency sweeping all over me. You
felt that business in its mad race didn't have time to
worry about honesty, and if you thought about honesty at
all it was only as a technical thing, like advertising, to
help efficiency forward. If you were to go to New
York and shop in the popular districts, then do Delancey
Street and the Bowery afterward, you'd get what I
mean. Down in those tedious-bargain streets, you feel
that you are in Europe on the shores of the Mediter-
ranean again, and that their business has nothing to do
with the great steam-rolling efficiency of America.

"But in Germany I felt something quite different from
anything that impressed me in other white countries. I
felt a real terrible honesty that you might call moral
or religious or national. It seemed like something highly
organized, patriotic, rooted in the soul — not a simple,
natural, instinctive thing. And with it I felt a confident
blind bluntness in the people's character that was as hard
and obvious as a stone wall. I was there when the mark

BANJO 146

had busted like a bomb in the sky and you could pick up
worthless paper marks thrown away in the street. There
were exchange booths all over Berlin — some of them
newly set up in the street. I saw Americans as heedless
as a brass band, lined up to change their dollars in face
of misery that was naked to the eye at every step. Yet
I never felt any overt hostility to strangers there as i do
here.

/"^'When I was going there the French black troops were

/ in the Ruhr. A big campaign of propaganda was on

l against them, backed by German-Americans, Negro-

[ breaking Southerners, and your English liberals and So-

1 cialists. <The odd thing about that propaganda was that

I it said nothing about the exploitation of primitive and

ignorant black conscripts to do the dirty work of one

victorious civilization over another, but it was all about

the sexuality of Negroes — that strange, big bug forever

buzzing in the imagination of white people. ^Friendly

whites tried to dissuade me from going to Germany at

that time, but I was determined to go.

"And I must tell you frankly I never met any white
people so courteous in all my life. I traveled all over
Prussia, from Hamburg to Berlin, Potsdam, Stettin,
Dresden, Leipzig, and I never met with any discourtesy,
not to mention hostility. Maybe it was there underneath
the surface, but I never felt it. I went to the big cafes
and cabarets in the Friederickstrasse, Potsdammer Platz,
and Charlottenburg, and I had a perfectly good time.
I went everywhere. I've never felt so safe in the low
quarters of any city as I have in those of Berlin and
Hamburg. One day I went to buy some shirts after
noting the prices marked in the shop window. When the
clerk gave me the check it was more than the price
marked, so I protested. He called the manager and
he was so apologetic I felt confused. 'It's not my fault,'

i47 EVERYBODY DOING IT

he said, 'but the law. All strangers must pay ten per
cent more.' And he turned red as if he were ashamed
of the law. Yet I never liked Germany. It was a coun-
try too highly organized for my temperament. I felt
something American about it, but without the dynamic
confusion of America."

They had reached Joliette, where the Britisher said
he must turn back.

"Come on, let's have a look at the Dollar boat," said
Ray.

"No. I have an important engagement with my
friend."

XII. Bugsy's Chinese Pie

WHAT'S his gag, pardner?" asked Banjo.
"He's a regular guy. I just got a hundred
francs outa him."

"How come? Why didn't you put me next, too? Is
he rough-trade business?"

"Oh no! They're bums just like us — he and his
friend. You know I don't pal around with rough-trade
business, though I appreciate them."

"Youse one nuts of a black beggar, pardner. But
wha'd'y'u mean bums like we is? You ain't telling me
they ain't sitting on a independent bank roll?"

"No, they ain't. They're dickey bums, just panhan-
dling through life like us, without any ambition for a
steady job. But they only bum the swells. The one
that just left us pulls the gentleman stuff, and his partner
hands them the raw colonial brass. It's the gentleman
stuff that does the best business, however."

"Gawd-an-his-chilluns 1 What a wuP ! But how they
make it, all dressed up fine and dandy like that?"

"Why, Banjo, you stiff poker! That's the best way
to bum among swell people. The sprucer you are and
the slicker your tongue, the surer your chances. Why,
those fellows make a thousand francs when we can only
make five. When one of those fellows bums a tourist,
he'll feel ashamed if he can't hand him a fifty or a hun-
dred franc note, the same way you and I feel ashamed
when a bum singer does his stuff in a bistro and we haven't

148

i49 BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

got a copper to put in the hat. Well, it was a lucky thing
I bumped into him and got this hundred francs. I was
jim-clean. Went up to the agency expecting a little
dough from the States, but I didn't get a cent. I would
have had to spend tomorrow in coal or grain.'*

"No, you wouldn't, either, pardner. I got me two
hundred francs."

"And your suit out, too! How'd you makem?"

"Ways a doing it, pardner. Even you' bestest friend
you can't let in on ehvery thing you do. Whenevah time
youse jim-clean, though, don't go making you'self blacker
than you is working in the white man's coal. Jest tell
you' pardner how you is fixed. I guess I c'n handle that
coal better'n you kain."

"But you don't have to, mah boy. You've got your
banjo to work for you."

"And youse got you' pen. I want you to finish that
theah story you was telling about and read it to me. I
think you'll make a good thing of it. Ise a nigger with
a long haid on me. I ain't dumb like that bumpitter
Goosey. I seen many somethings in mah life. Little
things getting there and biggity things not getting any-
where. I done seen the wul' setting in all pohsitions,
haidways, sideways, horseways, backways, all ways. Ef
I had some real dough I'd put it on you so you could have
time to make good on that theah writing business."

They did not find the other boys in the Joliette Square.
They looked for them in the cafes of the place and spied
them at last in a side street before a hotel restaurant
where stranded sailors were always housed by the Ameri-
can consulate. Malty, Bugsy, Ginger, Goosey, Dengel,
and the little Irish fellow. They formed a semi-circle
around a woman of average size.

It was a Negro woman, Banjo and Kay found, when
they got up to them. She was brown like oak, and was

BANJO 150

wearing a nigger-brown skirt and a black blouse with
white cuffs and collar, to which was attached a broad
white tongue, and in her hand she held a Bible. She had
that week arrived directly from New York and she was
telling the boys about it.

"I got a message fwom the Lawd. He dreamed me
in a vision and said, 'Take up you' Bible and hymn-book
and go. Go far and fureign to a place fohgot of Gawd
whar theah's many black folks and white folkses all
homeward bound for hell.' And I told that message to
the sistahs and brotherin of mah chierch and we-all of us
prayed ag'in, and that prayer was answered foh me to
git ready and come along to this heah Marcelles, and
heah I is."

She showed Ray her American passport, in perfect
order, visaed by the French consul in New York. "But
did you know anything about Marseilles before?" he
asked, feeling uneasy under her strange, holy-rolling eyes.

uNosah, not a thing until the Lawd him dreamed me.
And oh-h-h, how right it was! Oh-h-h, how right it
was!" She clasped her hands and looked ecstatically to
heaven. The boys glanced uncomfortably at one an-
other and round about them. Was she going to throw
that holy stuff right there?

"The Lawd dreamed me to come and warn yo'-all. I
know why all you young niggers jest loves it so around
heah without thinking a you* souls* salvation. I done
seen it all the fust day I landed, mah chilluns.
H-m-m-m-m! What a life! I ain't blind, and ef I
didn't close mah eyes against sich a grand parade of sin-
fulness as I nevah seen befoh, it was because the Lawd
done whisper to me: 'Keep you' eyes wide open, Sistah
Geter, so you c'n see it all, and don't miss anything
that'll make mah message the stronger.' "

No printed word could record the voluptuous sound

i5i BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

of Sister Geter's "H-m-m-m-m!" Banjo asked her how
she had located Joliette and the Seamen's Hotel, and she
said the American consul had arranged it.

"The consul him send you heah foh preaching!" Banjo
exclaimed.

"He done puts me heah foh bohd and lodging. He
didn't put me heah foh no preaching, for them's jest as
ungodly up theah in need a saving as yo'-all is down heah.
I went straight up theah as I landed and jest' lay mah
Bible down on the desk befoh that high and mighty white
man, and I told him that the Mightiest One had done
send me on this jierny for to preach the gospel word.

"And he done started in to tell me that I'd had to go
right on back home by the fust boat sailing, for Mar-
celles was no place for me. And don't ask me ef I
didn't done get him told jest as Jesus wanted me to.
I told him how he was in need a saving jest like anybody
else, and that he was nothing more than a sinner, and
that no pohsition wouldn't nary save him even ef he was
our own President hisself and not jest standing heah foh
him same as the President is standing foh Gawd and our
country.

"Yessah chilluns, I done gived him his share of the
message same as yo'-all gwina git yours, foh Gawd is no
respecter of high pohsitions, and befoh I done finish got
him told I seen that the spirit had laid strong hands on
him, for he was looking at mah papers and a counting
mah money and gitting a man to come and fix me up heah
whar I is."

"But, ma," said Ray, "if you've really come on salva-
tion business, down here is too righteous for you. You
should go up to the Bum Square where the world hangs
out."

"Sure. That's the place. Tha's the hell where all

BANJO 152

them liT ofay devils am monkeying, ma," Banjo declared
in a rollicking, rakish accent.

"I'm scared they might grab me," Sister Geter re-
plied, inclining her head on her shoulder in a slightly
suggestive way of worldliness, while a smile centering on
her full brown nose brightened her features, and just for
a moment she seemed flirtatious. Just for a moment, but
it did not escape the prehensile sense of Banjo, who
quickly nudged Ray behind and winked. But just as
quickly also did Sister Geter become her missionary self
again.

"Did you leavem all a you' money up theah at the
consulate, ma?" Ginger asked.

"Why, no. I done change a few dollars in them heah
French francs to carry me along for a little while."

"You know, ma," said Ginger again, "wese all good
boys. We all loves Big Massa Gawd and ain't doing
anything wicked, but wese jest stranded heah; can't get
a broa — a boat; and wese always hard up and hungry,
so ef you c'n hulp us out a liT bit with a liT money
fust "

"Oh La-a-a-awd! Save you' poah chilluns Lawd,
Lawd! Save them fwom sarving the devil and drifting
to hell so far away from home, Lawd !"

Sister Geter had thrown the holy stuff, gagging Gin-
ger before he could finish, and was performing on the
pavement just as if she were back home in a Protestant
revival state. She brought a crowd of French folk
running up in no time. Shop-keepers, restaurateurs, bar
people, chauffeurs, seamen, dockers, girls, and touts — the
colorful miscellany that makes the Place de la Joliette
always a place of warm interest. And following the
crowd, four policemen from the square were precipitat-
ing themselves toward the scene. The beach boys fled.

153 BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

There were piles upon piles of boxes on the pier, and
dozens of dockers were wheeling them across planks into
the hold of the ship. Taxicabs dashed in with passen-
gers, taxicabs dashed out, and taxicabs were waiting.
Private detectives stood talking with port police, and
black, brown, and white guides were buzzing about.
White beach fellows prowled up and down in their smelly
rags, looking up to the decks like hungry dogs. The
black fellows, less forward, stood a little way off. Two
white American sailors in sports clothes were convers-
ing with a ship's officer. One of them had been in hos-
pital, the other had missed his ship, and both of them
were being put up by the consulate against repatriation.

It was a splendid pattern of a ship, a much more im-
pressive thing in its bigness than the memory of the
President after whom it was named. Its world-touring
passengers crowded the decks tier upon tier. There were
elderly people who seemed not to be enjoying the trip,
but there were many others, young men and women who
were bubbling over with high spirits.

Over above them all, poised high up on the funnel
of the great liner, was the brazen white sign of the
dollar. It was some dockers pausing, pointing and spit-
ting at it, that drew Ray's attention as he stood at one
side with his companions. And immediately, too, a re-
action of disgust was registered in him. He could un-
derstand the men's gesture and apprehend why that
mighty $ stood out like a red challenge in the face of
the obstreperous French bull.

Even though the name of the man who bossed the
line was Dollar, thought Ray, it was at least bad taste for
him to be sending that sign touring round the world in
this new era of world finance. An idea flashed upon Ray,
and for a moment he wondered if he could capitalize it
by patenting a plan of giving the dollar lessons in di-

BANJO 154

plomacy, but it was immediately driven from his mind
by the charming voice of a young lady calling from the
deck: "Boy! boy!"

She was gesturing toward the black boys, and they
all started forward, but Bugsy was ahead of the others.
She was a tall fair girl, between brunette and blond, and
wore a reddish-gray traveling dress in which she was as
striking as a Fifth Avenue shop's cut of a French model.

"Boy," she said, looking down on Bugsy, "are you
from Dixie?"

"Yes, miss."

"And the others, too?"

"Yes, miss, wese all Americans."

"Listen at that nigger," Banjo said to Ray, "playing
straight for a hand-out."

"I thought yo'-all were American boys," said the girl.
"But what yo'-all doing so far away from home?"

"We works on ship, miss," said Bugsy; "we-all waiting
on ship now."

"Are yo'-all having a good time while you're waiting?"

"Not so bad, miss, although wese all of us broke all
the time."

"Isn't it wonderful!" she said, aloud, yet more to her-
self. "These cullud boys here just like they were back
home! . . . Say, boy, will you get me a paper — an
American paper?"

But before Bugsy could say yes, a white South African
fellow on the beach had put himself in front of him and
offered his services.

"You want a paper, lady? I'll get it and anything you
want. I know the town better "

"She ain't asting you foh nothing. It's me she done
ask!" Bugsy was up in the face of the little white, who
was just his size, with twitching hands, his knuckles rap-
ping his antagonist's breast.

i55 BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

"Stand off, you bloody kaffir — nigger!" said the white.

Bugsy palmed him full in the face. "You want fight?
Fight, then."

The South African staggered back a little, steadied
himself, and came back at Bugsy. He was game for it.
Bugsy ducked the drive to his jaw and closed in. With a
swift movement of his right foot he sent the South
African down on his back and was down upon him with
fist and knee.

"That's not fair fighting; that's not fair," the South
African cried.

"Wha's not fair? Ise fighting, tha's what Ise doing,"
retorted Bugsy.

Some dockers had gathered around, and one of them
pulled Bugsy up. The South African, mad with anger,
rushed him, but Bugsy stepped aside, and if it had not
been for one of the large ropes attaching the ship to
the pier, the white boy would have fallen into the water.
He came back sparring at Bugsy, who maneuvered a
clinch. The South African drove his fist low-down into
Bugsy's belly. Bugsy retaliated with a double butt.
That broke off the clinch, and suddenly he dove down
between the South African's legs and, lifting him by the
feet into the air, he sent him away off sprawling on his
back. It was nothing less than a miracle that the boy's
skull missed the iron pillar on the pier. That ended the
fight.

Bugsy looked toward the deck and saw not the fair
passenger, but a Chinese cook in native dress of blue
pantaloons and yellow jacket, with a large apple pie in
his hand. To Bugsy's surprise the Chinaman bared his
Oriental teeth, rather dirty, and handed him the pie,
patting him all the while on the shoulder :

"Tek pie. Me give. You fight good. Me love to
see you fight like that. Tek pie."

BANJO 156

The Chinaman patted Bugsy again and hurried back
with his quick jerky steps up the gangway, leaving him
happy with his American pie, but still rather astonished
by the gesture and not in the least understanding what it
was all about

The Irish boy was at Bugsy' s elbow. Bugsy turned to
him.

"He say I don't fight fair. Nutsl Fighting is fight-
ing. In England when they oncet get you down they kick
you all ovah. I didn't even lift mah foot at him."

The Irish boy laughed. "Don't worry about him.
Perhaps he had an idea you was putting on a sparring
match for the benefit a them tourists."

In the meantime Banjo had superseded Bugsy in the
favor of the gracious young lady.

"I'll get that theah paper for you," Banjo said.

"Be sure you get American and not English," she had
moved a little down the gangway and pretended not to
have seen the fight. She gave Banjo a dollar.

Banjo held the dollar in a tentative, humorous manner
and said: "But I gotta go way up yonder uptown to get
it, miss, and I'll have to take a taxi, and that alone'll
cost a dollar."

"Will it?" Her eyes took in Banjo's strutting ele-
gance in a swift glance. She smiled and said: "Well,
here's another dollar for yourself and five francs. You
can get the paper with that. It's all the French money
I've got. . . . What part of the South you from?" she
asked as Banjo reached for the money.

A moment's hesitation, too slight for her to remark,
and he said, "Norfolk, miss."

"Norfolk! Why, I'm from Richmond and I know
Norfolk very well. What part do you come from? I
have relatives there. Do you know the Smith family?"

"Sure, miss. I useta work as a chauffeur foh one a

i57 BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

them. That they one was ... he was ... I think he
was. . . ."

"Was it Mr. Charlie?"

"Egsactly, miss. I done drove Marse Charlie's car
and "

"Did you never hear him mention his cousins, the
Joneses of Richmond?"

"Sure thing, miss. Him and his wife and all a the
family was always talking about them Joneses. I knows
Richmond mahself, miss. I useta live there on Welling-
ton Street "

"Now isn't it just too extraordinary for anything to
see all you boys from back home here I How do you
find it?"

"Tough enough, miss, while wese waiting to get a job
on a ship, but sometimes fellahs like oursel's working
in our line will hulp us out some when a boat is in, and
when it is a big liner like this we hang around for any
little job going that a passenger might want done."

"Give me back those two dollars." The girl opened
a richly-variegated bead bag and, taking the two dollars
from Banjo, she handed him a five-dollar note, saying:
"Divide that up among you-all and get me what papers
you can with the Hve francs. Those published in Paris
will do, but be sure they're American."

Banjo pulled his hat off and made a fine darky acknowl-
edgment. The fight was finished. The girl, indicating
the South African, asked, "Is he American, too?"

"No, miss," replied Banjo, "he's British."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, casually, and went back up on
deck among the passengers, who had also followed the
fight with neutral amusement.

On the l'Estaque road Banjo caught a tramcar going
to Joliette. He boarded it and, arriving in the square,

BANJO 158

he bought copies of the Paris editions of the New York
Herald and the Chicago Tribune. He got another tram-
car going back toward the pier, and thus eliminated taxi-
cab fare. Five dollars at forty francs apiece to be
divided up among us, he mused. That'll give twenty-
five francs apiece to mah buddies and fifty for this good-
luck darky that done pulled the trick off.

After delivering the papers he caught the tramcar
again and stopped off at a cafe on the Quai d'Arenc,
where his pals were waiting for him. The Irish boy
was not there. He also had struck something good and
had taxied off with a passenger who wanted to be shown
the quartier reserve.

The boys had already emptied a few bottles of wine,
and Ray had paid for them before Banjo got there.

"Wha' you wanta blow you'self foh?" Banjo de-
manded. "You know I'm the best plugger of the gang
all this week, hitting nothing but bull's-eye pirn on the
head ehvery time."

He gave the boys twenty-five francs apiece. Dividing
up was a beach boys' rite. It didn't matter what share
of the spoils the lucky beggar kept for himself, so long
as he fortified the spirit of solidarity by sharing some of
it with the gang. The boys were hungry, and, besides
the general handout, Banjo paid for some food. So
much and so quickly did the boys eat, that the patrone
had to send out for bread. Joined together were two
long green tables of sausage and ham sandwiches, bottles
of red wine, filled and half-filled glasses.

"Foh making grub palatable," said Malty, "I ain't
seen no place equal to this that c'n do so much with a
piece of meat and a li'F vegetable, 'cep'n' it's way home
yonder where I was bohn; but "

"Don't talk crap about home cooking in them monkey
islands," Banjo interrupted. "The onliest thwoat-tick-

159 BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

ling cooking like French cooking is black folks' cooking
back home in Dixie. "

uYou don't know anything about the West Indies,
them, breddah," said Malty. "Mah mudder could cook
you a pot a rice and peas seasoned with the lean of
corned pork that'd knock anything you got in Dixie stiff
cold."

"Chuts! Rice is coolie grub," said Banjo. "I ain't
much on it 'cep'n' when I want a change a chop suey.
I would give all the rice and peas in the wul' foh one good
platter a corn pone and chicken "

"Corn pone!" sneered Malty. "Tha's coon feed-
ing "

"You said it, then," cried Goosey, "and I wish yo-all
would say corn bread instead of corn pone. Corn pone
is so niggerish."

"Mah mammy useta call it corn pone," said Banjo,
"and tha's good enough foh me."

"I was gwineta say," continued Malty, "that I had
moh'n was good foh mah belly a that theah corn pone
when I was way down in Charleston and Savannah, and
it couldn't hold a candle against our owna banana pone."

"Banana-what-that?" exclaimed Banjo. "You mean
banana fritters."

"Not ef I knows it, buddy," Malty laughed. "Banana
fritters is made from ripe banana. But I said banana
pone, which is made from green banana grated with
cocoanut and spice and sugar and baked in banana leaf.
I ain't nevah find nothing moh palatable than that in any
place in all the wul'. And that is black folks' eating, too.
You nevah find it on any buckra table."

"I've eaten it," said Ray. "It sure is great stuff."

"Kuyah!" exclaimed Malty, happy to be backed up,
"you eat it in Haiti, too."

"Sure. And I ate it in Jamaica. I was there for two

BANJO 160

years when I was a kid. We had a little revolution and
the President that was ousted was exiled to Jamaica with
his entourage. My father was among them and that was
how I happened to go."

"Yo'-all got me ways off what I was a gwineta say at
the beginning," said Malty, "and that was that the
Frenchies am A number one in the kitchen, but they ain't
gotem on the bread."

"I like French bread," said Goosey. "My teeth are
good."

"And my own is good, too, yaller," said Malty, "but
French bread is no good foh sandwich."

"I don't like French bread, anyhow," said Bugsy. "It's
like a rotten pimp up in the Ditch — all crust and no guts
to it."

Bugsy's witticism brought a roar of laughter and
spurred Banjo to a pronunciamento on the touts of the
Ditch.

"What do them poah ofay trash in the Ditch know
about doing the stuff in the big-style way it's done back
home?" declared Banjo. "Why, them nothing up there
can't even bring you a change a suit outa what them gals
is giving them! Why, they can't eat a decent meal!
But a man who is subsequential to a three-franc throw,
says I, ain't got no business to wear a pants. I nevah
seen such a lotta mangy p-i in all mah life. A fellah
doing that back home gotta show himself a man ehvery-
time. Him gotta come strutting swell and blowing big.
He's gotta show he ain't nobody's ah-ah business. I
knowed a fellah named Jerco in Harlem. Hi-eee! but
he was one strutting fool. I remember one night I
was with some white guys in a buffet flat in Harlem.
But they was cheap skates and only buying beer for the
house. The madam sent out to find Jerco, and when that
nigger bio wed in theah them cheap ofays jest woke right

161 BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

up. The piano-player was half asleep. Jerco brushed
him one side and made that piano cry a weeping 'blues.'
He ordered whisky and he ordered wine. It wasn't no
time before he had the whole house going and the ofays
coming across the right way. There was a liT dog sleep-
ing under a table. Jerco woke him up and told the
madam to feed him. And when the dog finished eating
he started to dance. And that was how the 'dog-walk*
started."

This time the boys' laughter shook the place so hard
that it knocked over a bottle which carried a glass to
the floor, both of them breaking. The patrone called
"Attention!" and came from behind the counter to pick
the pieces up. Banjo offered to pay, but she refused to
let him. She was laughing herself, although she did not
understand.

Bugsy's Chinese pie was splendid stuff after the sand-
wiches. And when the boys finished it, they left the
cafe, going through the docks toward Joliette. It was
too late for them to sleep on the breakwater after their
feed. So they straggled along, remarking the ships in
the docks. There was a new Italian ship, a fine thing,
moored where they were building the American-style
concrete warehouse.

The boys stopped to admire her and the building. A
little farther on they came upon a small pinch-faced white
boy with a hunk of bread so hard that he was softening
it under a hydrant to be able to eat it.

"Look at that poah kid!" said Banjo. "Starving, and
we just done ate moh'n we could finish! Oh, Gawdl
what a life! Some stuffing till they're messing up them-
sel's all ovah, and some drinking cold water to kill pain
in the guts. . . . Heah! Come heah, kid!"

"Wachu gwina do? Don't give the white bastard a
damn thing!" Bugsy cried.

J

BANJO 162

"Shet you' trap, ugly mug," said Banjo.

The boy saw Banjo beckon, and went to him. He
did not understand English. Banjo gave him five francs,
and the boy said "Merci" and started toward a little
buffet shed near by.

"Youse a bloody sucker, you," said Bugsy. "A white
person can always make a handout, where you kain't."

"I don't give a low-down drilling about that," replied
Banjo. "The kid was hungry and I done give him a
raise. I know more'n you do, perhaps, Bugsy, that
being black ain't the same as being white, but — Ain't I
right, pardner?"

Banjo not finding words to express exactly what he
felt, broke off and appealed to Ray.

"Sure you are. I was going to give the kid something
mahself, but you were before me."

"Last week," said Banjo, "when Malty tried to bum
a Englishman on that P. & O. boat, the bloody white
hog said that he didn't wanta talk to no black fellows.
Today I kid a cracker gal outa five dollars for the
bunch. It's a funny life and you got to take it funny."

"Youse a regular sore-back nigger," remarked Bugsy.
"I done said it some moh times and I'll say it again, you
nevah know when an American black man gwine show
himself a white man's nigger."

"I'll slap the sass outa you, you mean little cocoanut-
dodger," cried Banjo, "ef you call me any white man's
nigger," and he gave Bugsy a poke in his jaw that sent
him sprawling.

Bugsy got up frothy at the corners of his mouth,
which was always a biological peculiarity with him, but
now in his wrath it was more pronounced. He opened a
large pocket knife and cried, "I'll cut you all ways and
don't miss you throat."

"Try it, nigger," said Banjo, quietly enough. "Be-

163 BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

cause you lick that theah South African Jew boy, you
think youse got a chance against me?"

But the other boys put themselves between them and
disarmed Bugsy. In the scuffle Ray's wrist was cut and
bled a great deal.

To Ray the incident recalled another, almost identical
affair that happened in London. It was some time after
the report of the Amritsar massacre had demonstrated
that the mind of the world, shock-proof from the deeds
of the great war, nevertheless could still be moved by
tragic events. One evening Ray was strolling through a c
square with two Indians when a one-armed man stepped ]
out of the shadow and begged alms. Evidently he was
ashamed, for his hat was pulled down to hide his face.
One of the Indians gave a harsh refusal, adding, as they
walked on: "It is his kind the British use to make our
people crawl before them in India."

Ray felt ashamed. Ashamed that the man should be
forced to beg. Ashamed of the refusal. Ashamed of
himself. Ashamed of humanity. Instinctively he felt
that the man who begged was not of the hateful type
that does the sentry duty of the British Empire. Yet he
could not feel that his Indian friend was wrong. He
never gave alms in public himself, even when he could
afford it. It made him feel cheap and embarrassed.
But he would have liked to give something to that one-
armed man. And he had not dared.

He hated the society that forced him into such an \f
equivocal position. He hated civilization. Once in a
moment of bitterness he had said in Harlem, "Civiliza-
tion is rotten." And the more he traveled and knew of
it, the more he felt the truth of that bitter outburst.

He hated civilization because its general attitude to-
ward the colored man was such as to rob him of his
warm human instincts and make him inhuman. Under

BANJO 164

it the thinking colored man could not function normally
like his white brother, responsive and reacting spontane-
ously to the emotions of pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow,
kindness or hardness, charity, anger, and forgiveness.
Only within the confines of his own world of color could
he be his true self. But so soon as he entered the great
white world, where of necessity he must work and roam
and breathe the larger air to live, that entire world, high,
low, middle, unclassed, all conspired to make him pain-
fully conscious of color and race.

Should I do this or not? Be mean or kind? Accept,
give, withhold? In determining his action he must be
mindful of his complexion. Always he was caught by
the sharp afterthought of color, as if some devil's hand
jerked a cord to which he was tethered in hell. Regulate
his emotions by a double standard. Oh, it was hell to be
a man of color, intellectual and naturally human in the
white world. Except for a superman, almost impossible.

It was easy enough for Banjo, who in all matters acted
instinctively. But it was not easy for a Negro with an
intellect standing watch over his native instincts to take
his own way in this white man's civilization. But of one
thing he was resolved: civilization would not take the
love of color, joy, beauty, vitality, and nobility out of his
life and make him like one of the poor mass of its pale
creatures. Before he was aware of what was the big
drift of this Occidental life he had fought against it in-
stinctively, and now that he had grown and broadened
and knew it better, he could bring intellect to the aid
of instinct.

Could he not see what Anglo-Saxon standards were
doing to some of the world's most interesting peoples?
Some Jews ashamed of being Jews. Changing their
names and their religion . . . for the Jesus of the Chris-
tians. The Irish objecting to the artistic use of their

165 BUGSY'S CHINESE PIE

own rich idioms. Inferiority bile of non-Nordic minori-
ties. Educated Negroes ashamed of their race's intuitive
love of color, wrapping themselves up in respectable gray,
ashamed of Congo-sounding laughter, ashamed of their
complexion (bleaching out), ashamed of their strong
appetites. No being ashamed for Ray. Rather than
lose his soul, let intellect go to hell and live instinct !

XIIL Bugsy Comes Back at Banjo

THE Cairo Cafe in Joliette was packed full. An
aged girl, her pale, tired features grotesque under
the paint, was pounding out on the piano a tragic
imitation of Raquel Meller's song:

"Mimosa! Mimosa!
Elle ria pas regarde chere petite,
Mais elle a vu hien plus vite
Que son coeur palpite,
Et quil lui tend les bras,

Mim os a! Mim osa !"

A slightly built Algerian rattled the drum and banged
the cymbals. Young men, rigged out in fashionable re-
galia, burning colors from shoes to cap, danced with the
girls of the quarter and with one another. Some wore
proletarian blue. Egyptians, Maltese, Algerians, Tu-
nisians, Syrians, Arabians, and Chinese bobbing up and
down in ungainly jerks.

Chinese and Arab men are awkward in modern dances.
They have nothing of the natural animal grace and
rhythm of Negroes jazzing.

Although the Cairo was a colored bar, the Negroes
hardly ever went there. Negroes and Arabs are not
fond of one another — even when they speak the same
language and have the same religion. There is a great
gulf, of biological profundity, between the ochre-skinned
North-Africans and the black dwellers below the desert.

1 66

i67 BUGSY COMES BACK AT BANJO

The Negro's sensual dream of life is poles apart from
the Arab's hard realism.

Bugsy, passing the Cairo, saw Latnah inside and en-
tered. Since his misunderstanding with Banjo, the wiry
little fighter was walking very much by himself. And
he enjoyed it. Bugsy was happiest when he was breath-
ing some militant resentment. He did not speak to
Latnah, not knowing with whom she had come nor what
she was doing, but went to the bar and called for a glass
of lemonade-menthe.

Latnah spoke to him. Although she was sitting at a
table with white girls and brown men, she was really
alone. She knew the proprietor, who was a brown man,
and had stopped for a word with him. And then she
had sat down and stayed, to listen, perhaps, to the lan-
guage familiar to her, which Banjo mockingly called
the Arabese.

Latnah called Bugsy and shifted, without getting up,
to a small unoccupied table in the corner parallel to the
one from which she moved. Bugsy went over to her,
taking his drink.

"What you doing heah, taking that thing away from
Banjo?" he asked her.

uBanjo!" Latnah sneered. "Me no never see him.
Long time him no come sleep. Banjo dirty man and no
good friend."

Bugsy was very glad that Latnah was piqued and
ready to hear him unburden himself about Banjo.

"You jest now finding out he's a dirty spade and ain't
no good?" he said. "I knowed it long time. If Banjo
had a had plenty a money he'd never speak to a cullud
person. I know that."

"But why?" Latnah demanded. "He black man."

"That ain't nothing. Him is crazy 'bout white folks.

BANJO 168

He's a Alabama nigger or cousin to one, and jest bohn
foolish about that white skin. I tell you he'll sooner
give a white beach-comber a raise than one of his own
color. And you know it's easier for a white man to bum
a good raise than us to. A white man can bum off his
own color, and he think him is doing a colored man a
favor when he pay him the compliment a bumming him,
but often when we start bumming a white man, all we
get outa him is 'damned dirty nigger' and his red moon
in our face."

"I know Banjo little mad, but I no think he love white
more than colored. No, he just like everything without
thinking. He Negre; he can't love the white."

"You don't know that nigger like I does. He ain't
lak me and you. He is a sore-back nigger and sure got
white fevah. I done listen at him talking and I knows
he ain't got no use foh your kind. . . . Why, did you
evah see him when he made that big raise off a them
boys with the music on that City Line boat? You bet
you didn't. And now you ain't seeing him, either, since
Taloufa done paid and got his suit out and gived him
a big raise befoh going away "

"Oh, Taloufa gone away?"

"Sure. He done take his tail away from this bum
hussy." (Bum hussy was one of Bugsy's names for
Marseilles.) "And all the money he done leave Banjo
that nigger is spending in Boody Lane on that kelt that
he done wasted all his duds on when he come here first.
Same one that wouldn't nevah so much as look at him
when he done run through all his money and got him
messed up in a fight."

"He with her again?" Latnah asked.

"Sure. Ef you go 'long up to that there rendezvous
cafe near Boody Lane Ise sure you find them theah to-
gether."

i69 BUGSY COMES BACK AT BANJO

The thought of Banjo having money and spending it
on that girl, together with Bugsy's intimation that this
was Banjo's real preference, made Latnah crazy with
anger.

"I no understand good," she said. "I go with white
man, but only for money. White race no love my race.
My race no love white."

"Banjo ain't like us. Him is a sore-back nigger,"
said Bugsy, vindictively. "Them that likes white folks
riding them all the time."

So, thought Latnah, he no like my kind. He no man.
He no good. He no got no pride of race. Me give
him sleep. Me give him eat. Me give him love. Me
give him money for go buy that thing. Even my money
he took and went off laughing and sailor-rocking like
that, away from me to spread strange joy. She had
never been jealous of his change of pillow. That she
understood, Orientwise. But for him to lose good
money to those things in the Ditch, and for what? For
the benefit of their two-legged white rats. Banjo an
ofay-lover. She was seething with that deep-rooted sex-
ual resentment that the women of the colored and white
races nourish against one another — a resentment per-
haps even more profound among the women than among
the men of the species, because it is passive, having no
outlet for brutal expression.

While Banjo had temporarily got up strutting and
looked good to the Ditch again, his first flame had
fallen far down the scale to a box in the Ditch. After
quitting her maison d? amour for picnic days with Banjo,
she had found another when the strutter's funds were
exhausted. But she did not remain very long in the new
place. Banjo's grandiose way of doing things must

BANJO 170

have stirred to life dead romances in her and spoiled her
for the discipline of the shuttered places. However, the
change was not advantageous even if she lived now in
more natural light, seeing more of the street, for she
was merely a "leetah" girl and down at the very bottom.

And now, in her changed estate, she did not withhold
a smile from Banjo passing by more dandified than ever
and looking his handsomest. Banjo, who never bore
rancor for any length of time against anybody or any-
thing, fell again.

"Chere Blanche I" That was her name, and some one
had chalked it up on the rough, weather-beaten gray
door of her dark little hole-in-the-wall.

Bugsy, of course, had Banjo wrong. Banjo was no
ofay-lover. He simply would not see life in divisions of
sharp primary colors. In that sense he was color-blind.
The colors were always getting him mixed up, shading
off, fading out, running into one another so that it was
difficult to perceive which was which. Any pleasing color
of the moment's fancy might turn Banjo crazy for awhile.

Bugsy was wrong indeed. Banjo would put no ofay
before Malty, much less Ray. If he had Latnah tangled
up and lost in the general color scheme, it was because
she was a woman, and he took all women as one — as they
came — roughly, carelessly, easily.

Banjo with Ray was at the little bar not far from
Boody Lane. They were playing American poker with
a red-skinned tout from Martinique, and a group of
Corsican and Provencal touts were playing a French
game at another table. Chere Blanche had deserted the
sill of her box, where she was a fixture on the lookout
night and day now, and was talking to the patrone at
the bar.

Two girls came in, one of them whistling Carmen's

171 BUGSY COMES BACK AT BANJO

song. The sharp features of the whistling girl were
brown as an Arab's, but she was Provengal. She wore
a flaring pink frock and her face was smeared with rouge.
She was an old and hard habitant of the Ditch, but her
companion, who was new to it, was very pretty, pink-
rosy and young, between fifteen and sixteen. She had
just a little rouge on her lips and she had on a black
frock, as if she were mourning somebody; but that was
camouflage. She had not a yellow card to live the life
of the Ditch, for she was too young to get one. And
so she was being chaperoned and cautiously initiated into
the ways by the older girl. She had been only two weeks
down there, having run away, so they said, from some
country place. She was very much admired, naturally,
for her youth and fresh prettiness among the old girls
gave her the air of a little princess among scrub-women.
But there was not a latent spark of interest in her eyes.
She was thin, and already a fever color was supplanting
the rose of her cheek, and from the bones the flesh was
sagging unpleasantly.

The boys of the Ditch who were not touts gossiped
about her all the time. They said that if the police
caught her they would send her away to some place of
confinement and keep her there a good many years, giving
her time enough to reflect. But such gossiping was merely
slum sentimentality, for the ways of the Ditch were open
to all eyes and police eyes, like touts' eyes, were keen
to see what they wanted to see and blind to what they
wanted not to see.

It was just a month since a very interesting couple had
been pounced upon and borne away. A boy of seven-
teen and a girl of sixteen from a little tourist town.
They had come into the Ditch with something of the
Terve of the black beach boys. She, boy-bobbed, wearing

BANJO 172

a cerise frock, and he like a romantic apache in black, a
red cloth around his neck, a bright cap pulled down side-
ways on his face and often a flower, fixed always in the
corner of his mouth. The girl was usually reading Le
Film Complet, Mon Cine, and moving-picture novelettes.
In the bistro where they lolled out each day they were
amorous of each other in a curious way — like stage folk
apparently forgetful of the audience — an amorousness
that was as different from the monkey exhibitions of the
runted touts and their ladies as a good glass of red wine
was from the camouflage absinthe-and-water of the Ditch.
It may have been that that young couple brought some-
thing into the scene which made them impossible to the
poor old actors there. Anyway, the police were soon on
to them.

The girl who was whistling ruffled Ray's kinky black
mat. "Pay me a drink?" she asked.

"Sure; but what will you do for it?" he demanded.

She shrugged. "What is it you want?"

"You might sing what you were whistling. Do you
know the words?"

"Putainf Cest ga? Sure I know 'Carmen.' I see it
every season. I never miss it. 'Carmen,' 'Boheme,'
*Mignon' ... I love them all. But 'Carmen' the most.
I saw it three times one season, the artiste who played
Carmen was so wonderful."

"Let's hear you sing it. I love it, too," said Ray.

The girl went to the counter, drank an aperitif sec, and
began singing:

"L'amour est un oiseau rebelle . . ."

Her voice was rather hoarse and soiled, incapable of
holding a note or ascending very far, but her acting was
superb as she side-stepped about the bistro, posing and
gesturing with a cigarette between her fingers. It was

173 BUGSY COMES BACK AT BANJO

her manner when she whistled that had piqued Ray to
ask her to sing. She was Carmen incarnate in her act-
ing. What a hip-shaker she was!

Comic opera was ever a thing of great joy to Ray. It
gave him such a perfect illusion of a crazy, disjointed
relationship of all the arts of life. Singing and acting
and orchestra and all the garish hues. Fascinating
melange of disorder. No one part ever equal to the
other. Like life . . . like love. All the world on a
stage just wrong enough to be right.

Ray recalled the first time he had ascended to the
gods to see Geraldine Farrar in "Carmen" at the Metro-
politan in New York. Geraldine certainly did not act
that Carmen stuff as brazenly well as this girl. Going
down from colored Harlem to the opera then was a steal-
ing away from his high home of heavenly "blues" and
rag-time to taste some exotic morsel brought from a far-
away other land of music. The pals of his milieu tapped
their heads knowingly at his going among the ofay gods
to throw away a dollar or two. There were so many
charming things at a dollar or so a throw in Harlem.
He felt a little lonely going, but was compensated after-
ward by the blood-tingling realization of how much
the composite life of Harlem was like a comic opera.
He had traveled far since those days, yet no scene had
ever conveyed to him such a sensuous impression of a
comic opera as Harlem.

A little lusting for opera in the Ditch was a different
thing. It was quite easy to find a companion of a sort
in a bistro ready for a trip to the gods of the opera.
And Ray never had that feeling, as he had had it in
Harlem, of going out of his own warm environment into
a marble-cold world of dilettantism.

For a change, a slight operatic tune in the Ditch was
not an exotic thing. Such airs flowing through the alleys

BANJO 174

were as natural as rain water washing down the gutters.
It was often a delicious experience for Ray suddenly to
hear a girl whistling or singing such a fascinating old
favorite as "Connais tu le pays ou fleurit Toranger . . ."
or uOui ! On m'appelle Mimi . . ." or a fleeting frag-
mentary lilt from "La Flute Enchantee." It was none-
theless lovely if the melody was broken by a volley of
bullets tearing down some dark alley and scaring the
Ditch to cover. That enhanced the color of the place as
a theater. That endeared the Ditch to him. There was
nothing artificial about that. It was as strikingly natural
as the high-heeled fancy shoes and the pretty frocks of
popeline de soie and crepe Marocain and all the volup-
tuous soft feminine stuff parading there in the mud and
slime and refuse. The poor overplucked chickens who
loved to jazz all night to American rag-time and the
music-hall hits of Mistinguett also had an ear for other
kinds of music — even as Ray.

"" fL 'amour est enfant de Boheme,
II na jamais connu de hi;
Si tu ne maimes pas, je faime!
Si je t'aime, prends garde a toil* "

The girl flicked her skirt in Ray's face, and, laughing,
ended her song. At that moment Latnah entered the
bistro. She had abruptly left Bugsy at the Cairo bar to
come to the Ditch. Chere Blanche was familiarly pos-
ing against Banjo. Latnah rushed up to her and said in
French: "You haven't done him enough harm when you
robbed him and got him in trouble. Now you run after
him again. You no good, you damned mean slut. That
for you."

She slapped the girl in her face. The girl screamed
and started toward her, but Latnah caught her flimsy
frock at the neck and with one fierce jerk, ripped it apart

175 BUGSY COMES BACK AT BANJO

so that it fell at Chere Blanche's feet. And that was all
her clothing. She gathered the pieces about her and fled
from the cafe.

Banjo grabbed Latnah's wrist. "What in hell-fire
you come here messing with the gal foh?"

"You fool!" cried Latnah. "Gal no love you. Be-
cause you got good clothes now and little money and she
thrown out of the tnaison ferme and got no friend, not
even a dirty maquereau wanting her, she running after
you again."

"You lemme manage mah own self and don't come pok-
ing you' nose in mah business, for I don't want no black
woman come messing me up."

"I no black woman."

"You ain't white."

"But I no nigger like you. So what Bugsy say is true,
eh? You prefer help ofay than colored boys. You no
proud of race, no like your own color. You no good
then. You no come no more my house, no speak no more
to me. Me finish."

"I don't care. You know why I went with you? I did
that to change mah luck."

"I no understand."

"You don't?" Banjo explained. "When I was up
against it, as if the ofays hadda done hoodoohed me, I
thought that by changing color I might change mah
luck."

Now Latnah understood. It humiliated her. She
crumpled under Banjo's jibe. He had spoken in a ban-
tering way, but his words were cruel ; they ate into her.

"By-by, mamma." Banjo touched her shoulder play-
fully— "and don't nevah you pull off no moh of that
hen-scratching stuff on me."

BANJO 176

"Touch me again and I stick youl" She whipped
her little dagger out of her bosom.

Banjo saw the silver-headed thing and recoiled quickly
as from the sudden menace of a rattlesnake. His eyes
and mouth popped open, his face wearing horror like an
African mask.

XIV, Telling Jokes

THERE was one Southern black on the beach whom
Banjo and his boys hated to see and always
avoided. He had come to Marseilles from a
North-African port, where he had been paid off on a
foreign ship. When he arrived at Marseilles, like the
boy of the "Don't-light-it-afire" story, he was highly dis-
dainful of the beach boys and would have none of them;
but he allowed himself to be picked up by some insectile
Corsican voyous who made their headquarters in a sewer
hole of a hotel-bistro of the Ditch. When his money was
gone he went to the American consulate, and it was
arranged for him to be returned home by an American
freighter. But when the day came for him to ship he
refused to go. He had got a little money somewhere.
He lived on it for a few days. After that was gone he
again returned to the consulate for help, but the clerk
in charge of the seamen's department would have nothing
to do with him.

Then he tried to get in with the beach boys, but they
would not have him. Not merely because he had scorned
their company at first, but because he was a dead thing
with no spark in him of the vagabond flair for life which
was the soul of the beach existence. The boys called
him Lonesome Blue.

Lonesome Blue had been excited by the boys' talk of
raiding the good wine of the docks. And one fine after-
noon he hiked down and bunged out a barrel on the

177

BANJO 178

breakwater, right under the eyes of the police. He was
arrested and got prison for three months and a writ of
expulsion from the country effective ten days after he
was released.

If you have the hard luck to get expelled from France,
the department of the Surete Generale does not worry
itself about the manner of your going. The order is,
Get out! and you yourself must find the way. Because
of this, many criminals merely change their names and
the scene of their activities in order to remain in the
most fascinating of European countries. Some of them
stay in the same place, if it is, like Marseilles, big enough
to hide in, having faith in their cleverness to escape the
toils of the police. Ginger, for example, having got into
difficulties, had been sentenced to do a little time and
then to be deported. That was long, long ago. But
on coming out of jail he had destroyed the expulsion
paper and was still enjoying Marseilles. That is not
such a simple thing as it sounds, for the police are ever
on the lookout for evaders, for whose arrest they get
a premium of some ten francs per head. Ginger had
been caught in many a "rafle," but his little store of
colloquial French and his good-natured wit had got him
through the examination every time.

Poor Lonesome Blue was tongue-tied and witless.
Since his first imprisonment, he had twice been in jail for
disobeying the expulsion orders, and he had made souve-
nirs of the papers for the benefit of the police. He had
just been let out again and entered the African cafe on
seeing Banjo and the boys, who had assembled there
after lunch.

"Here is ole Lonesome Blue again," cried Banjo. "Al-
ways exposing himself when you least expect, scarifying
like a haunts."

"Why don't you get outa it, mah boy?" said Ginger.

i79 TELLING JOKES

"Seeing as youse messed up you'self in this Frenchman's
town, why don't you ketch you a broad and get outa it ?
Look how you stand."

Lonesome Blue was in a crumpled tangle of rags, his
toes poking through a poor proletarian pair of Proven-
gal pantoufles, his face scabby and wearing a perpetually
soured expression, as if some implacable, invisible demon
had a clutch on the back of his neck.

"Youse a sick nigger," said Banjo. "You look in
a bad way to me, lak somebody done got a passport for
the boneyard."

"You don't have to tell me that. I know it," replied
Lonesome Blue. "I know it without you saying it. Only
Gawd knows how I feel," he finished with a belly-deep
groan.

"Gawd won't hulp you a damn sight mohn the debbil
will, nigger," retorted Banjo. "You better cut out the
preaching Jesus stuff and get you a broad foh going
back home. And when you git back you take you'se'f
to a hospital and get some shots, for if you ain't got the
sip I ain't nevah seen none."

"Wha' you wanta drink?" Ginger asked.

"Not a damn thing to drink with our gang," said
Banjo. "Ain't none of us gwine encourage Lonesome
Blue to lay around heah and die. If we got any money,
let's give it tohm. But let him keep to himself until
he's so lonely that he'll sure get right outa this French-
man's town. I don't know what youse hanging around
here foh. The consul ain't evah gwine to do anything
for you again, and the police will git a hold a you every-
time them ten days am finished."

"That's the truth," said Goosey. "I quit my ship and
have never gone to any consul since. And I don't intend
to. When the consul put you on that ship, Lonesome,

BANJO 180

it would have been better you had gone. You made a
big mistake."

"A nigger is a bohn mistake," declared Banjo, laugh-
ing. "When Gawd made the white man, he put a little
stuff in his haid for him to correct his mistakes. And
so when the white man invented writing and pencil, he
put an eraser on that pencil to rub out mistakes. But
Gawd nevah gived the nigger no brain-stuff foh'm to
correct his mistakes, and so the nigger kaint invent any-
thing to correct his mistake.

"For when Gawd was making the first nigger, a blue-
bird jest fly down into the Tree of Life and started
singing that the wuP was ready and waiting foh the love
a Gawd. And the tune was so temptation that Gawd
lost his haid and set down the golden bowl with the
nigger's brain in it. And the serpent was right there.
And he ups and et the nigger's brain and put a mess a
froth in the golden bowl. And that stuff for the nigger's
brain gived the serpent the run of the earth. . . .

"And when Gawd done took up his work again, he
took the froth in the bowl and dumped it into the nig-
ger's brain and finished his job. And that's why you find
the world as it is today. The debbil ruling hell and
earth, the white man always getting by and there, and
the nigger always full a froth or just dumb like this
heah Lonesome Blue."

All the boys had a rollicking laugh in which they were
joined by Kid Irish, who had come in while Banjo was
holding forth, accompanied by a fleshy young man, a Jew,
who made a living as a guide and a seller of sex post
cards to tourists. The Jew had arrived from Toulon,
whence he had followed the American squadron, that
had just put in at Marseilles.

"But, Lawd Gawd," said Ginger, "imagine what we
niggers woulda been today if Big Massa hadn't a made

181 TELLING JOKES

a mistake. Why, if we am as we is from a mistake, what
wouldn't we be if we had been made right from the start?
We woulda had Gawd and them angels in glory and
all nuts."

The boys roared out again and Goosey said: "That
story you told was raw niggerism, Banjo, and you ought
to be ashamed to tell that on the race before a white
person."

"Eh-eh-ehieeee !" Malty laughed. "Can't the race
stand a joke?"

Whereupon the Jew said he knew a better one than
Banjo's and volunteered to tell it if the boys didn't
mind.

"Sure. Speak up, kid," said Banjo. "There ain't no
ladies here objecting, except Goosey. And ef he don't
like it he can take his box outa here."

The Jew said: "I guess you all heared about 'Shuffle
Along,' the colored show that had such a long run on
Broadway. I seen it about six times. Gee! there was
some swell-looking colored goils in it. I used to see
real money guys waiting just to get a glimpse of them
coming out of the theater. Well, what I'm going to say
is about two of the goils and I'm telling it straight as I
heard it.

"One night two of the show girls was walking home
together, and they saw a white man lying in the gutter.
They didn't know whether he was hurt or drunk, and
they woulda liked to help him, but they were goils and
colored (you all understand), so they couldn't do any-
thing for him.

" 'It's really too bad to leave him be like that,' says
one of the goils, 'but we've gotta, because some white
person might see us helping him and think something
bad of us. Let's go on our way, dearie.'

"And as they walked off the other goil she says:

BANJO 182

'Too, too bad poor white man fallen so low. Seems to
belong to some dickty family, too. Did you notice his
clothes? And such a handsome profile.,

" 'Profile !' says the other goil. 'It wasn't no profile
you see, honey, but his flask a liquor in his pants.' "

The joke went over the heads of all the boys except-
ing Ray and Goosey. Ray smiled and remarked that
most of the stock "Negro" jokes were of Jewish origin,
but Goosey scowled and cursed under his breath.

"That makes me remember," said Ray, "I read in a
colored newspaper that one of those 'Shuffle Along* girls
was fired from the company for keeping a date with a
white man."

"Served the damn wench right," said Goosey.

"Oh, I know a good one meself," said Kid Irish.

"I think weVe had enough of colored jokes," said
Goosey.

"Enough you' grandmammy!" cried Banjo. "Quit
you' bellyaching blah and get along from here. A joke
is a joke "

"Yes, but white people don't make jokes like that
about themselves," maintained Goosey. "Especially the
one-hundred-per-cent Yankees. You fellows don't know
anything about the race movement. Ray knows better,
yet he holds in with you. You don't know why the white
man put all his dirty jokes on to the race. It's because
the white man is dirty in his heart and got to have dirt.
But he covers it up in his race to show himself superior
and put it on to us. The Yankees used to make jokes
out of the Germans. Then when the Germans got strong
enough to stop that, they got it out of the Irish and
Jews. When the Irish and Jews got too rich and power-
ful in politics, they turn to Italian and Negroes."

"That ain't right on the Irish, me man," said Kid
Irish. "There's barrels o' Irish jokes going around."

1 83 TELLING JOKES

"If the Yankee can't afford a joke and the Negro can,
then the Negro is the bigger and richer man," said Ray.

"That's poetical," replied Goosey. uThe weak and
comic side of race life can't further race advancement."

"You talk just like a nigger newspaper," said Ray.

"Niggah from you, Ray!" exclaimed Goosey, "and
with white folks among us ! I expected that from Banjo
or Malty, but not from you."

"Yes, nigger," repeated Ray. "I didn't say 'niggah'
the way you and the crackers say it, but 'nigger' with the
gritty V in it to express exactly what I feel about you
and all coons like you. I know you think that a coon is
a Negro like Banjo and Ginger, but you're fooling your-
self. They are real and you are the coon — a stage thing,
a made-up thing. I said nigger newspaper because a nig-
ger newspaper is nothing more than a nigger newspaper.
Something like you, half baked, half educated, full of
false ideas about Negroes, because it can't hold its head
up out of its miserable purgatory. That's why we — you
— the race — can't get beyond the nigger newspaper in the
printed word. That's why an intelligent man reads it
only for the comic — the joke that it is. You talk about
niggerism. Good Lord! You're a perfect example of
niggerism. Sometimes you get me so worked up with
your niggery bull, I feel like giving you a poke in your
stupid yaller jaw."

Swept by a brain-storm, Ray was gesticulating in
Goosey's face.

"Get your monkey-chasing hand out of my face, black
nig — man," cried Goosey, getting hot. "Because you're
a man without a country, you have no race feeling, no
race pride. You can't go back to Haiti. You feel there's
no place for you in Africa, after you've hung around
here, trying to get down into the guts of the life of these
Senegalese. You hate America and you despise Europe.

BANJO 184

You're just a lost sore-head. You pretend you'd like to
be a vagabond like Malty and Banjo here, but you know
you're a liar and the truth is not in you."

"Aren't you happy you've got a country and a flag to
go back to?" asked Ray, now quieting down.

"When it comes to myself, I'm not studying those
United Snakes," retorted Goosey.

"Holy Gees!" cried Kid Irish. "Don't start a riot
among ye, or if youse going to, wait and let me deliver
meself first."

"Sure. Go on with it, bud," said Ginger. "Ray, how
come you make Goosey get you' goat like thataway?"

Ray laughed, puzzled himself at his little flare-up.

Kid Irish said: "There's four people in me story, so
that makes it a square joke.

"There was two Irish friends from Galway. They
were very poor and they went to America to make their
fortune. The oldest friend was engaged to be married.
When the two partners reached New York they soon got
jobs and they lived together. The oldest one became
a policeman and his friend got a job as a bartender.
They had an apartment in San Juan Hill in a district
where there were many niggers "

"Negroes," corrected Goosey.

"Yes, Niggerows. Excuse me," said Kid Irish. "The
policeman started in to save to send for his girl. But
after a year he didn't have enough money. So his friend
offered to help him and proposed they should all three
housekeep together to save expenses when the girl came.
She arrived and was married to the policeman, and the
three of them took a flat in the same quarter. And of
course in time the bride got in the family way.

"The husband was very happy and he and his friend
began saving more than ever so that after the birth they

185 TELLING JOKES

would all go back to Ireland. But the strangest thing
happened, some funny freak o' nature, for when the baby
was born it was black. The husband said he didn't want
the baby and he wasn't going to stay in New York; he
was going back home and he couldn't take the bride with
him. The friend said he would go back home, too. So
they bought steamship tickets to go back to Ireland and
left the bride and the strange infant. But the friend
was awfully sad about the whole business, and when they
were on the pier, waiting to board the ship, he broke
down and cried as if his heart was going to break.

"And the husband said to him : 'Cheer up ! The way
you carry on they would think it was you and not me that
was married to her.'

"And his friend replied : 'I just can't help it, seeing how
it took two Irishmen to make one nigger.' "

The boys roared as Kid Irish stopped. Goosey liked
that joke and joined in the laughter.

Banjo got up, jigging round the cafe, chanting the
popular melody: "It takes a long, tall brownskin."

"What about going down to the docks, fellahs?" asked
Ginger. "There's a good broad in. I know the crew."

"I'm game for anything," said Malty.

"Let's give Lonesome Blue some money, between us,"
said Banjo, "for I just ain't gwine to have this rear-end
facer trailing us."

They found five francs for Lonesome Blue, and as he
was limping off from the cafe Ray called after him:

"Wait for me. I'm going with you."

"Whereat?" demanded Banjo. "You're going with
us."

"No, I'm going to police headquarters or to the Amer-
ican consulate with Lonesome. If they expel him, why
don't they send him home to America? This jailing of
a man again every ten days after he is out seems the most

BANJO 186

abominable thing to me. And a man like Lonesome.
Sick and nutty and not able to help himself. How can
a civilized government do that? Is there no international
law for deportees ?"

"I tell you, pardner, as you best friend," said Banjo,
"if I was you I'd keep away from all them gov'ment
people, whether theyse French or Americans. I ain't
nevah fooled round them. What you want to go and get
mixed up with them for, all on account of this dumb
Alabama darky

"I ain't from Alabam'

"You look like you is, all the same," Banjo said to
Lonesome Blue.

"All the same, I am going to see what I can do," in-
sisted Ray. "We don't want to see him die off like a dog
around here, like that old man in Joliette."

Ray went off with Lonesome Blue.

The old man in Joliette was a half-crippled, white-
head fixture who came on crutches every morning to
squat in the Place de la Joliette near the fountain where
the coal workers stripped to the waist to wash themselves
after work.

When the black beach boys bummed food they brought
him some, pieces of bread and scraps of meat. And
sometimes the coal workers gave him coppers. Banjo
would get food for him and give it to one of the boys to
take to the old man. But Banjo always steered wide
of the spot where he sat. Banjo lived entirely on his
strength and was scared of contacts with any Negro that
had lost the one thing a vagabond black had to live by.

The old man was a used-up British seaman. Looking
down on the square from a hilly street is the British
Mediterranean Mission to Seamen, which operates under
the patronage of His Britannic Majesty, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, and other distinguished personages. Float-

187 TELLING JOKES

ing above it is a blue flag bearing a white angel flying to
the aid of seamen. And nearly every day a cock-eyed
white servant of His Majesty's mission passed by the
disabled old black seaman in the square to visit the in-
coming ships and distribute tracts and mission cards to
able-bodied sailors. One morning the old man could
not come to the square, for he had died in his sleeping-
hole on the breakwater.

XV. White Terror

SIMULTANEOUSLY with the American squadron,
an American freighter and two large English ships,
one from South Africa and another from India, had
arrived in port. There were also a number of British
tramps at anchor for some days. There was much
changing of dollars and pounds and ten-shilling notes
in agencies and cafes by sailors, officers, and tourists.
The guides were as busy as could be showing the new
arrivals about. For the chauffeurs of the docks it was
a picnic day. All the night places were excited with
anticipation of new guests. The boites de nuit had sent
delegations of cocottes down to the docks to greet the
newcomers with cards of invitation.

Some of these cards were decorated souvenirs, and,
like many of the cabarets, bore the flags of the great
shipping nations and advertised British ale and whisky
and American cocktails. . . .

It was twilight and Ray was hurrying along the Rue
de la Republique toward Joliette where he was to meet
Banjo, as he had promised. Besides its usual peripatetic
exhibition of youths in proletarian blue, cocottes, Arabs,
Senegalese, soldiers, and sailors with red pommels on
their caps, the street parade included groups of British
seamen and white-capped sailors from the destroyers.

In the Place Sadi Carnot, Ray was accosted by a stag-
gering seaman with a card in his hand.

"Is this the — the — Bru — Bru — Bru — Brutish-Amuri-

188

1 89 WHITE TERROR

can Bar?" he asked in a drunken stutter, punching with
his finger a card that he held.

Ray looked at it. An advertisement of the British
and American Bar with its delightful symbolic trade-
mark— a Union Jack and Stars and Stripes united upon
a Tricolor. It also bore a plan of Marseilles, with a
long red line like a serpent indicating the route from
the quays to the establishment in the Place de la Bourse.

"No," said Ray, "this is not the British-American Bar,
but you keep straight on until you reach the end of this
street. Then you are at the Vieux Port and anybody
will show you the Bar."

"Thank yer, mite," and the seaman staggered on-
ward, repeating, "Bru — Bru — Bru — Bru — Brutish-
Amurican Bar. . . ."

On the same street, where the Boulevard des Dames
crosses it, Ray had another rencontre, this time a sur-
prising one — three American Negro seamen from an
American freighter, one of whom was a waiter he had
known on the railroad.

Ray's old friend insisted that he should turn back with
them. They went to the Senegalese Bar. Banjo was
there, having returned from Joliette by the short way.
Ray introduced the seamen to him, the patron, and a
handsome Senegalese boxer.

The acquaintance between Ray and the railroad waiter,
now turned ship's steward, was slight. They had never
worked on the same dining-cars, but had met each other
casually at the railroad men's quarters in Philadelphia.
Yet they met now and acted like old and dear friends.
Meeting like that was so unique, it stirred them strangely.

The seamen stood drinks. They said they would like
to go to some place where they could amuse themselves.
Banjo suggested a place in the Ditch, but they wanted
something of the better sort. All three of them were

BANJO 190

well dressed. The boxer thought the British-American
Bar would be all right. So the whole party decided to
go* Banjo was in such an exciting, merrymaking mood
that he won the admiration of the boys and was the
target of most of the questioning. The atmosphere of
the Senegalese Bar had won them immediately. It was
run by a Negro and catered to colored men and they
agreed that it was the best they had seen in any foreign
port. When the proprietor talked English to them they
felt proud that he had emigrated to America and made
enough money there to return to France and start a
business. . . . And Banjo ! So gay and dressy on his
hand-to-mouth existence without ever worrying about
anything. That was marvelous I

"You find it all right over here, eh?" one of the new-
comers asked him. "The froggies treat you better than
the hoojahs, eh?"

"Well now, that's a question I wouldn't know how
to answer noneatall," said Banjo, "for it all depends on
which way you take it. There ain't no Canaan stuff
sweeter than this heah wine and honey flowing in this
place, but otherwise speaking, the Frenchies them have
the same nose like a Jew, and ef you don't smell a money
they can't use you."

"Hi ! now you're saying that thing," Ray laughed.

"All the same, you've got more freedom here," said
the seaman; "when you have money you can go any place
you got a mind to."

"Sure can," said Banjo. "Theah's moh freedom, all
right, if you know how to handle it. But some a them
niggers come here, boh, am as funny and dumb jes' like
that thing. They get in every way except the right way.
They ketch the wrong end of the stuff. They ketch
the pohliceman's billy, they ketch the jail-house, and what
not ketch ? Oh, Lawdy ! ask not me !"

i9i WHITE TERROR

"Maybe the good liquor makes them crazy after booz-
ing so long on moonshine corn," said a seaman.

"And mos'n a them don't even know how to use it
right," said Banjo. "They come here wanting whisky
and gin, and when I tell them to drink French wine,
that's the best stuff to feel good on, they say it's sour
dago red. Can you beat that?"

"Don't be too hard on them, Banjo," said Ray. "They
got to learn."

"Learn!" sneered Banjo. "Them kind a babies nevah
learn anything. A real traveling guy has got a pream-
bulating nose for the bestest thing in any country when-
ever it is accommodated to him, but there's many people
running round the world that nevah shoulda been outa
them own home town."

For certain reasons, arrived at from a wide knowl-
edge of the eccentricities of civilization and experience
personal and impersonal, Ray felt no eagerness to trans-
fer the party to the British-American Bar on such an eve-
ning. He was really rather reluctant, but because he
preferred not to deaden in any way the keen anticipation
of the evening's pleasure for his comrades, he said
nothing.

The atmosphere of the cabaret, when the boys got
there, was heavily charged with contrary foreign influ-
ences and they were greeted by an extraordinary salvo of
shrill female laughter as they entered. The Senegalese
was irritated and said he did not like the atmosphere
and the reception. Ray told him he did not think it
was mocking laughter. Ray was never on the lookout
for hostile hints; his mind was too rich of sane, full liv-
ing for that. But there was no obtuseness there to pre-
vent him from making immediate note of any such tend-
ency. He had often remarked that white people were
never more contemptibly vulgar than when a Negro

BANJO 192

entered a white place of amusement. If it were not a
hostile exhibition of bad manners, as in America, it
would be an imbecile theatrical demonstration, as often
happened in Europe. It was as if the black visitor
could not be seen in any other light but that of a funny
actor on the stage.

He had never known black people to act like that when
white persons entered a Negro place of pleasure. On
such occasions Negroes could assume a simple dignity as
remote from white behavior as primitive African sculp-
ture is from the conventionalism of a civilized drawing-
room. He had never remarked a vulgar gesture. Primi-
tive peoples could be crude and coarse, but never vulgar.
Vulgarity was altogether a scab of civilization.

The boys squeezed together round a table and had
some drinks. The Senegalese was right. None of the
girls wanted to dance with them. It was purely a matter
of good business. Ray understood and he was glad to
get away from the place. Cockney was not a musical
accent to his ears, nor was there any aesthetic pleasure
in the sight of those white caps on hard-boiled, over-
shaved heads. But it hurt him that these black boys,
coming off the ship after a long hard trip should tumble
into this.

Not far from the British-American Bar was another.
The head waiter was a boxing enthusiast and was friendly
with Ray and the Senegalese. Ray told the boys to wait
for him in the square while he went to the bar to talk to
the head waiter. It was a more expensive bar than the
British-American.

The head waiter was at the bar when Ray entered.
He was glad to see Ray and offered him a drink, but he
wasn't pleased to hear what Ray wanted for his com-
rades. He wished it was any other time, for the boite-
de-nuit was full of American and British officers spending

i93 WHITE TERROR

plenty of money, drinking champagne. He was sure
there would be trouble. There had been before when
there were colored men in the bar and English and
American customers — especially Americans. Once that
bar had been ordered closed for six months because of a
colored-white incident. He was for the boys, all right,
for he was one of them himself, but if they did come in
there might be a fight and it would spoil the boss's
business.

Business! Prejudice and business. In Europe, Asia,
Australia, Africa, America, those were the two united
terrors confronting the colored man. He was the butt
of the white man's indecent public prejudices. Prejudices
insensate and petty, bloody, vicious, vile, brutal, raffine,
hypocritical, Christian. Prejudices. Prejudices like the
stock market — curtailed, diminishing, increasing, chang-
ing chameleon-like, according to place and time, like the
color of the white man's soul, controlled by the exigencies
of the white man's business.

Back in the square with his comrades, Ray said he
knew of one other place where he had been a few times
with the two gentlemen bums, but he felt sure it would
be no different from the rest on a night like that.

"Damn the white man's bars!" he said. "Let's go
back to the Ditch."

"When I enlisted in the army during the war," said
Banjo, "mah best buddy said I was a fool nigger. He
said the white man would nevah ketch him toting his gun
unless it was to rid the wul' of all the crackers, and I
done told him back that the hullabaloo was to make the
wul' safe foh democracy and there wouldn't be no crackers
when the war was 'ovah and ended,' as was done said
by President Wilson, as crackers didn't belong in democ-
racy. But mah buddy said to me I had a screw loose,
for President Wilson wasn't moh'n a cracker. He was

BANJO 194

bohn one and he was gwineta live and die one, and that
a cracker and a Democrat was one and the same thing.
And mah buddy was sure right. For according to my
eyesight, and Ise one sure-seeing nigger, the wul' safe foh
democracy is a wul' safe foh crackerism."

"I was just waiting for one of those Americans to
make a move against us," said the Senegalese boxer. "I
would like to murder one of them. I have my gun."

"No good that," said Ray, who, although he was al-
ways ready to defend himself in the jungles of civiliza-
tion, was dead set against stupid violence.

"It's just about two years," said the Senegalese, "that
some Americans caused a black prince to be thrown out
of a cabaret in Montmartre, and Poincare made a dec-
laration against it. He said Americans cannot treat
Negroes in France the way they do in America."

"That won't prevent discrimination, though," said
Ray, "so long as the pound is lord and the dollar is king
and the white man exalts business above humanity. 'Busi-
ness first by all and any means !' That is the slogan of
the white man's world. In New York we have laws
against discrimination. Yet there are barriers of dis-
crimination everywhere against colored people. Some-
times a Negro wins a few dollars in a test case in the
courts. But no decent Negroes want to go to court for
that. We don't want to eat in a restaurant nor go to
a teashop, a cabaret, or a theater where they do not want
us, because we eat and amuse ourselves for the pleasure
of the thing. And when white people show that they
do not want to entertain us in places that they own, why,
we just stay away — all of us who are decent-minded —
for we are a fun-loving race and there is no pleasure in
forcing ourselves where we are not wanted.

"That's why the amusement side of the life of the
Negro in America is such a highly-developed thing. And

i95 WHITE TERROR

in spite of the deep differences between colored and white,
it is the most intensely happy group life of Negroes in
any part of the civilized world."

"You're right," said one of the visitors. "I have been
in many a poht, all right, and I've spread joy some,
but when it comes to having a right-down good time,
there ain't any a them that's got anything on Harlem.
Well, whar we going?"

"It's rotten luck," said Banjo, "for you-all to hit this
town when it is lousy with crackers. It ain't always like
this. But the Ditch is all right, though. Everything is
down theah. And I nevah crave to leave it for any other
show."

The boys had shuffled off along up the Canebiere,
talking.

"Sure the Ditch is all right," said Ray. "I was just
thinking how we fellows traveling around like this learn
a whole lot a things. A sailor ought to be the most
tolerant person in the world, he has seen so much. And
I think he is in his rough way, from all I've seen of
sailors knocking around port towns. Except the white
American sailor. He sees everything, but he learns noth-
ing. And I don't think he's capable of learning. He
carries abroad with him everything that should be left
back home. Everything that is mean, hard-boiled, and
intolerant in American life.

"Well, if we can't learn anything from the traveling
representatives of American culture, we might learn from
other people. I'll tell you something about these sailors.
A few months ago I was visiting Toulon, when this same
squadron arrived. Now on the Boulevard de Strasbourg
at Toulon there is a tavern where the young officers al-
ways dance. Many of the better class of cocottes go
there. The common French sailor is not allowed in there.
But when the American sailors came they were given the

BANJO 196

run of the tavern. Why? Because they had plenty of
dollars to spend — the pay of an American sailor turned
into francs is probably as much as the pay of a French
lieutenant. I'm not sure.

"Some hundreds of low cocottes came to Toulon for
the American sailors. And they all flocked with them to
the tavern. I was interested to know what the young
French officers would do. Of course, they couldn't stand
the changed atmosphere of the place. And they just
stopped going there I There was a little exclusive danc-
ing-place in an out-of-the-way street, and I saw a few of
them dancing there with their girls.

"After all, they were officers with a right to kick. But
they didn't. They just separated themselves from the
canaille. They knew what a little extra good business
meant to a French co mm ere ant. You know in America,
with our high wages and the dollarized standard of liv-
ing, we have no idea of money value and economy in the
ordinary European sense. But that is something else.
All I want to say is that I learned something helpful
from that incident at Toulon. Something that made
me sure of myself and stronger in my own worth."

"I get you," one of the seamen said.

"You do?" asked Ray. "There are different ways of
growing big and strong, for individuals as well as for
races."

When the boys reached the Place de la Bourse again
they were suddenly surrounded by a troop of painted
youths who, holding hands, danced around them with
queer gestures and queerer screams, like fairy folk in
fables.

"Here they are!" laughed Ray. "If there's a British-
American bar over there, there's none here."

"A regular turn-out foh the deep-sea stiffs," commented
Banjo. "Ain't nothing missing in this burg."

i97 WHITE TERROR

aThey ought to give them yellow cards, too," said
the Senegalese.

"Pourquoi?" asked Ray.

"Pour la sante publique, comme les files. Et voyez,
Us sont toujours en concurrence avec eux. Ce n'est pas
juste/'

Ray laughed. "Justice, like equality, mon vieux, does
not exist in the mathematics of life. It's a man's world,
you might say a white man's world and ... 'a man's a
man for a that.' "

Two sailors, arm in arm, their white caps set far back
on their heads, came out of the British-American Bar
and moved in a slow drunken roll across the square,
chanting, as if they were rooting for a team: "We are
Americans. . . . We are Americans, . . ."

The African Bar was jammed full when the boys got
back there. Smoke hung in gray chunks in the hot, strong-
smelling air. Under it the player-piano was spitting out
a "Charleston" recently arrived in Marseilles, while
Martinique, Madagascan, and Senegalese soldiers,
dockers, maquereaux — and, breaking the thick dark mass
in spots, a white soldier or docker — were jazzing with
one another and with the girls of the Ditch.

A Senegalese, squeezed up against the bar, with his
wrist in a sling, called to Banjo as the boys pushed them-
selves in :

"Hey! you see American sailor?"

"I seen plenty a them, but I don't pay them no mind,"
said Banjo. "Wha's matter with you' hand?"

The Senegalese related to the boys how a gang of
American sailors had rushed a bistro-dancing in Joliette,
where colored and white of the quarter were amusing
themselves, and tried to break it up. He had got a
sprained wrist, but for revenge he had landed a sailor

BANJO 198

a butt that skinned his forehead and clean knocked him
out.

"How did it finish up?" Ray asked.

"The police came just when the patron got out his
revolver."

"Oh, Lawd!" Banjo began in a Negro prayer-meet-
ing tone. "It's a hellova life and all Gawd's chilluns
am creatures of the debbil, but, oh, Lawd, lawdy, don't
let a cracker cross mah crossings in this Frenchman's
town."

The boys pushed into the dance.

XVI. The "Blue Cinema"

RAY had met a Negro student from Martinique, to
whom the greatest glory of the island was that the
Empress Josephine was born there. That event
placed Martinique above all the other islands of the An-
tilles in importance.

"I don't see anything in that for you to be so proud
about," said Ray. "She was not colored."

uOh no, but she was Creole, and in Martinique we are
rather Creole than Negro. We are proud of the Em-
press in Martinique. Down there the best people are
very distinguished and speak a pure French, not anything
like this vulgar Marseilles French."

Ray asked him if he had ever heard of Rene Maran's
Batouala. He replied that the sale of Batouala had been
banned in the colony and sniggered approvingly. Ray
wondered about the truth of that; he had never heard
any mention of it.

"It was a naughty book, very strong, very strong,"
said the student, defending the act.

They were in a cafe on the Canebiere. That evening
Ray had a rendezvous at the African Bar with another
student, an African from the Ivory Coast, and asked the
Martiniquan to go with him to be introduced. He re-
fused, saying that he did not want to mix with the Sene-
galese and that the African Bar was in the bas-fonds.
He warned Ray about mixing with the Senegalese.

"They are not like us," he said. "The whites would

199

BANJO 200

treat Negroes better in this town if it were not for the
Senegalese. Before the war and the coming of the
Senegalese it was splendid in France for Negroes. We
were liked, we were respected, but now "

"It's just about the same with the white Americans,"
said Ray. "You must judge civilization by its general
attitude toward primitive peoples, and not by the excep-
tional cases. You can't get away from the Senegalese
and other black Africans any more than you can from
the fact that our forefathers were slaves. We have the
same thing in the States. The Northern Negroes are
stand-offish toward the Southern Negroes and toward
the West Indians, who are not as advanced as they in
civilized superficialities. We educated Negroes are talk-
ing a lot about a racial renaissance. And I wonder how
we're going to get it. On one side we're up against the
world's arrogance — a mighty cold hard white stone thing.
On the other the great sweating army — our race. It's the
common people, you know, who furnish the bone and
sinew and salt of any race or nation. In the modern race
of life we're merely beginners. If this renaissance we're
talking about is going to be more than a sporadic and
scabby thing, we'll have to get down to our racial roots to
create it."

"I believe in a racial renaissance," said the student,
"but not in going back to savagery."

"Getting down to our native roots and building up
from our own people," said Ray, "is not savagery. It
is culture."

"I can't see that," said the student.

"You are like many Negro intellectuals who are belly-
aching about race," said Ray. "What's wrong with you-
all is your education. *You get a white man's education
and learn to despise your own people. You read biased
history of the whites conquering the colored and primi-

201 THE "BLUB CINEMA"

tive peoples, and it thrills you just as it does a white
boy belonging to a great white nation.

"Then when you come to maturity you realize with a
shock that you don't and can't belong to the white race.
All your education and achievements cannot put you in
the intimate circles of the whites and give you a white
man's full opportunity. However advanced, clever, and
cultivated you are, you will have the distinguishing adjec-
tive of 'colored' before your name. And instead of
accepting it proudly and manfully, most of you are soured
and bitter about it — especially you mixed-bloods.

"You're a lost crowd, you educated Negroes, and you
will only find yourself in the roots of your own people.
You can't choose as your models the haughty-minded edu-
cated white youths of a society living solid on its imperial
conquests. Such pampered youths can afford to despise
the sweating white brutes of the lower orders.

"If you were sincere in your feelings about racial
advancement, you would turn for example to whites of a
different type. You would study the Irish cultural and
social movement. You would turn your back on all these
tiresome clever European novels and read about the Rus-
sian peasants, the story and struggle of their lowly, pa-
tient, hard-driven life, and the great Russian novelists
who described it up to the time of the Russian Revolution.
You would learn all you can about Ghandi and what
he is doing for the common hordes of India. You would
be interested in the native African dialects and, though
you don't understand, be humble before their simple
beauty instead of despising them."

The mulatto student was not moved in his determina-
tion not to go to the African Bar, and so Ray went
alone. He loved to hear the African dialects sounding
around him. The dialects were so rich and round and
ripe like soft tropical fruit, as if they were fashioned to>

BANJO 202

eliminate all things bitter and harsh to express. They
tasted like brown unrefined cane sugar — Sousou, Bam-
bara, Woloff, Fula, Dindie. . . .

The patron of the African Bar pointed out men of the
different tribes to Ray. It was easy to differentiate the
types of the interior from those of the port towns, for
they bore tribal marks on their faces. Among civilized
people they were ashamed, most of them, of this mutila-
tion of which their brothers of the towns under direct
European administration were free; but, because tattoo-
ing was the fashion among seamen, they were not
ashamed to have their bodies pricked and figured all over
with the souvenirs of the brothels of civilization.

It was no superior condescension, no feeling of race
solidarity or Back-to-Africa demonstration — no patriotic
effort whatsoever — that made Ray love the environment
of the common black drifters. He loved it with the poeti-
cal enthusiasm of the vagabond black that he himself
was. After all, he had himself lived the rough-and-
tumble laboring life, and the most precious souvenirs
of it were the joyful friendships that he had made among
his pals. There was no intellectual friendship to be com-
pared with them.

It was always interesting to compare the African
with the West Indian and American Negroes. Indeed,
he found the Africans of the same class as the New
World Negroes less "savage" and more "primitive."
The Senegalese drunk was a much finer and more tracta-
ble animal than the American Negro drunk. And al-
though the Senegalese were always loudly quarreling
and fighting among themselves, they always made use of
hands, feet, and head (butting was a great art among
them) and rarely of a steel weapon as did the American
and West Indian Negroes. The colored touts that were

2o3 THE "BLUE CINEMA*'

reputed to be dangerous gunmen were all from the French
West Indies. The few Senegalese who belonged to the
sweet brotherhood were disquietingly simple, as if they
had not the slightest comprehension of the social stigma
attaching to them.

At the African Bar the conversation turned on the
hostile feeling that existed between the French West
Indians and the native Africans. The patron said that
the West Indians felt superior because many of them
were appointed as petty officials in the African colonies
and were often harder on the natives than the whites.

"Fits d * es clave s! Fils d'esclavesf" cried a Senegalese
sergeant. "Because they have a chance to be better
instructed than we, they think we are the savages and
that they are 'white' negroes. Why, they are only the
descendants of the slaves that our forefathers sold."

"They got more advantages than we and they think
they're the finest and most important Negroes in the
world," said the student from the Ivory Coast.

"They're crazy," said the patron. "The most impor-
tant Negroes in the world and the best off are American
Negroes."

"That's not true! That can't be true!" said a chorus
of voices.

"I think Negroes are treated worse in America than
in any other country," said the student. "They lynch
Negroes in America."

"They do," said the patron, "but it's not what you
imagine it. It's not an everyday affair and the lynchings
are pulled off in the Southern parts of the country, which
are very backward."

"The Southern States are a powerful unit of the United
States," said Ray, "and you mustn't forget that nine-
tenths of American Negroes live in them."

BANJO 204

"More people are murdered in one year in Marseilles
than they lynch in ten years in America," said the patron.

uBut all that comes under the law in spite of the
comedy of extenuating circumstances," said Ray, "while
lynch law is its own tribunal."

"And they Jim Crow all the Negroes in America,"
said the student.

"What is Jim Crow?" asked the Senegalese sergeant.

"Negroes can't ride first class in the trains nor in the
same tramcars with white people, no matter how educated
and rich they are. They can't room in the same hotels
or eat in the same restaurants or sit together in the same
theaters. Even the parks are closed to them "

"That's only in the Southern States and not in the
North," the patron cut in.

"But Ray has just told us that ninety per cent of the
Negroes live in those states," said the student, "and that
there are about fifteen millions in America. Well then,
the big majority don't have any privileges at all. There
is no democracy for them. Because you went to New
York and happened to make plenty of money to come
back here and open a business, you are over-proud of
America and try to make the country out finer than it is,
although the Negroes there are living in a prison."

"You don't understand," said the patron. "I wasn't
in the North alone. I was in the old slave states also.
I have traveled all over America and I tell you the Amer-
ican Negro is more go-getting than Negroes anywhere
else in the world — the Antilles or any part of Africa.
Just as the average white American is a long way better
off than the European. Look at all these fellows here.
What can they do if they don't go to sea as firemen?
Nothing but stay here and become maquereaux. The
Italians hog all the jobs on the docks, and the Frenchman
will take Armenians and Greeks in the factories because

205 THE "BLUE CINEMA"

they are white, and leave us. The French won't come
straight out and tell us that they treat us differently
because we are black, but we know it. I prefer the Amer-
ican white man. He is boss and he tells you straight
where he can use you. He is a brute, but he isn't a
hypocrite."

The student, perplexed, realizing that from the earn-
estness of the cafe proprietor's tone there was truth in
what he said, appealed to Ray in face of the contra-
dictory facts.

"You are both right," Ray said to the student. "All
the things you say about the Negro in the States are
facts and what he says about the Negro's progress is
true. You see race prejudice over there drives the
Negroes together to develop their own group life. Amer-
ican Negroes have their own schools, churches, news-
papers, theaters, cabarets, restaurants, hotels. They
work for the whites, but they have their own social group
life, an intense, throbbing, vital thing in the midst of the
army of whites milling around them. There is nothing
like it in the West Indies nor in Africa, because there you
don't have a hundred-million-strong white pressure that
just carries the Negro group along with it. Here in
Europe you have more social liberties than Negroes
have in America, but you have no warm group life. You
need colored women for that. Women that can under-
stand us as human beings and not as wild over-sexed sav-
ages. And you haven't any. The successful Negro in
Europe always marries a white woman, and I have
noticed in almost every case that it is a white woman
inferior to himself in brains and physique. The energy
of such a Negro is lost to his race and goes to build up
some decaying white family."

"But look at all the mulattoes you have in America,"

BANJO 206

said the student. "White men are continually going with
colored women."

"Because the colored women like it as much as the
white men," replied Ray.

"Ray!" exclaimed Goosey who had entered the cafe,
"you are scandalous and beneath contempt."

"That's all right, Goosey. I know that the American
Negro press says that American colored women have no
protection from the lust and passion of white men on
account of the Southern state laws prohibiting marriage
between colored and white and I know that you believe
that. But that is newspaper truth and no more real
than the crackers shouting that white women live in fear
and trembling of black rapists. The days of chivalry
are stone dead, and the world today is too enlightened
about sex to be fooled by white or black propaganda.

"In the West Indies, where there are no prohibitory
laws, the Europeans have all the black and mulatto con-
cubines they need. In Africa, too. Woman is woman
all over the world, no matter what her color is. She is
cast in a passive role and she worships the active success
of man and rewards it with her body. The colored
woman is no different from the white in this. If she is
not inhibited by race feeling she'll give herself to the
white man because he stands for power and property.
Property controls sex.

"When you understand that, Goosey, you'll under-
stand the meaning of the struggle between class and class,
nation and nation, race and race. You'll understand
that society chases after power just as woman chases
after property, because society is feminine. And you'll
see that the white races today are ahead of the colored
because their women are emancipated, and that there is
greater material advancement among those white nations
whose women have the most freedom.

207 THE t4BLUE CINEMA"

* 'Understand this and you will understand why the
white race tries so hard to suppress the colored races.
You'll understand the root of the relation between col-
ored women and white men and why white men will make
love to colored women but will not marry them."

"But white women marry colored men, all the same,"
Said Goosey. "White women feel better toward colored
people than white men."

"You're a fool," replied Ray. "White men are what
their women make them. That's plain enough to see in
the South. White women hate Negroes because the
colored women steal their men and so many of them
are society wives in name only. You know what class
of white women marry colored men."

"There are Negroes in America who had their for-
tunes made by white women," said Goosey.

"There are exceptions — white women with money who
are fed up. But the majority are what I said a while
ago. . . . Show me a white woman or man who can
marry a Negro and belong to respectable society in
London or New York or any place. I can understand
these ignorant black men marrying broken-down white
women because they are under the delusion that there
is some superiority in the white skin that has suppressed
and bossed it over them all their lives. But I can't under-
stand an intelligent race-conscious man doing it. Espe-
cially a man who is bellyaching about race rights. He
is the one who should exercise a certain control and self-
denial of his desires. Take Senghor and his comrades
in propaganda for example. They are the bitterest and
most humorless of propagandists and they are all mar-
ried to white women. It is as if the experience has over-
soured them. As if they thought it would bring them
closer to the white race, only to realize too late that it
couldn't.

BANJO 208

"Why marry, I ask? There are so many other ways
of doing it. Europe can afford some of its excess women
to successful Negroes and that may help to keep them
loyal to conventional ideals. America 'keeps us in our
place* and in our race. Which may be better for the
race in the long run.

"The Jews have kept intact, although they were scat-
tered all over the world, and it was easier for them than
for Negroes to lose themselves.

"To me the most precious thing about human life is
difference. Like flowers in a garden, different kinds for
different people to love. I am not against miscegena-
tion. It produces splendid and interesting types. But
I should not crusade for it because I should hate to think
of a future in which the identity of the black race in the
Western World should be lost in miscegenation."

Six distinguished whites entered the cafe, putting an
end to the conversation. They were the two gentlemen
bums, three other men and one woman. The woman
saw Ray and greeted him effusively with surprise.

"Oh, Ray, this is where you ran away to hide yourself,'
leaving all the artists to mourn for their {ine model."

"But she is American," the Ivory Coast student, pop-
eyed at the woman's friendly manner, whispered to the
patron.

"Sure," he answered, in malicious triumph. "Did you
think there were no human relations between white and
black in America, that they were just like two armies
fighting against each other all the time?"

Ray did not know who the woman was, whether she
was American or European. She spoke French and Ger-
man as readily as she spoke English. He had met her
at the studio of a Swiss painter in Paris (a man who
carried a title on his card) when he was posing there,
and she had made polite and agreeable conversation with

209 THE "BLUE CINEMA"

him while he posed. Later, he saw her twice at cabarets
in Montmartre, where he had been taken by bohemian
artists, and she had not snubbed him.

The gentlemen bums were as surprised as the Ivory
Coast student (but differently) when the woman greeted
Ray. They had met the group and were going through
the town with them. The leading spirit of the party
had desired to stop in the bar when he was told that it
was a rendezvous for Negroes.

He was a stout, audacious-looking man, a tireless in-
ternational traveler, who liked to visit every country
in the world except the unpleasantly revolutionary ones.
The accidental meeting was a piquant thing for Ray,
because he had heard strange talk of the man before.
Of celebrations of occult rites and barbaric saturnalia
with the tempo of nocturnal festivities regulated by the
crack of whips. A bonfire made of a bungalow to show
the beauties of the landscape when the night was dark.
And a splendid stalwart, like one of the Sultan of
Morocco's guards, brought from Africa, as a result of
which he had been involved in trouble with governmental
authorities in Europe.

Certainly, Ray had long been desirous of seeing this
personage who had been gossiped about so much, for
he had a penchant for exotic sins. Indeed, a fine Jewish
soul with a strong Jeremiah flame in him had warned Ray
in Paris about what he chose to call his cultivation of the
heathenish atavistic propensities of the subterranean per-
sonality. The Jewish idealist thought that Ray had a
talent and a personality so healthily austere at times that
they should be fostered for the uplift of his race to the
rigorous exclusion of the dark and perhaps damnable
artistic urge. But . . .

Well, here was this bold, bad, unregenerate man of
whom he had heard so much, and who did not make any

BANJO 210

deeper impression than a picturesque woman of Ray's
acquaintance, who carried her excessive maternal feelings
under a cloak of aggressive masculinity.

The two other men were Americans. The party was
bound for any place in the Mediterranean basin that the
leader could work up any interest for. They were spend-
ing the night in Marseilles and wanted to see the town.
The gentlemen bums had taken them through Boody
Lane where they had had their hats snatched and had
paid to get them back. The hectic setting of Boody Lane
with the girls and painted boys in pyjamas posing in their
wide-open holes in the wall, the soldiers and sailors and
blue-overalled youths loitering through, had given the
party the impression that there were many stranger,
weirder and unmentionable things to see in the quarter.

"I tell them there is nothing else to show," said the
Britisher, speaking generally and to Ray in particular.
"Paris is a show city. This is just a rough town like
any other port town, where you'll see rough stuff if you
stick round long enough. I can take you to the boites de
nuit, but they're less interesting than they are in Paris."

"Oh no, not the cabarets. They bore me so," said
the woman. "We're just running away from them."

She was tall and of a very pale whiteness. She seated
herself on a chair in a posture of fatigue. Ray remem-
bered that strange tired attitude of hers each time he had
seen her. Yet her eyes were brimful of life and she was
always in an energetic flutter about something.

"There's nothing else here," the Britisher apologized
to the leader of the party, "but the maisons fermees and
the 'Blue Cinema* and they are all better in Paris."

"The 'Blue Cinema,' " the leader repeated casually.
"I've never seen the thing. We might as well see it."

He ordered some drinks, cognac and port wine, which
they all had standing at the bar. A white tout drifted

2ii THE "BLUE CINEMA"

into the bar. Three girls from Boody Lane followed.
Another tout, this time a mulatto from the Antilles, and
after him two black ones from Dakar. More girls of
the Ditch. The news had spread round that there were
distinguished people at the cafe.

"We'll go and have dinner and see the 'Blue Cinema'
afterward," said the leader.

Sitting on the terrace, a Senegalese in a baboon attitude
was flicking his tongue at everything and everybody
that passed by. He reclined, lazily contented, in a chair
tilted against the wall. One of the girls, following the
party as they came out, called him by name and, leaning
against the chair, fondled him. He smiled lasciviously,
his tongue strangely visible in his pure ebony face.

Ray, turning his head, saw in the face of the woman
the same disgust he felt. Those monkey tricks were the
special trade-marks of the great fraternity of civilized
touts and gigolos, born and trained to prey on the carnal
passions of humanity.

A primitive person could not play the game as neatly
as they. During a winter spent at Nice, he had found
the cocottes and gigolos monkeying on the promenade
more interesting to watch than the society people. The
white monkeys were essential to the great passion play
of life to understudy the parts of those who were hold-
ing the stage by power of wealth, place, name, title, and
class — everything but the real thing.

And as there were civilized white monkeys, so were
there black monkeys, created by the conquests of civiliza-
tion, learning to imitate the white and even beating them
at their game. He recalled the colored sweetmen and
touts and girls with whom he had been familiar in Amer-
ica, some who lived in the great obscure region of the
boundary between white and black. Following as they
did their own shady paths, he had never been strongly

BANJO 212

repelled by their way of living, because it was a role
that they played admirably, scavengers feeding on the
backwash of the broad streaming traffic of American life.
They were not very different from the monkeys of the
French Antilles who carried on their antics side by side
with the Provencals and Corsicans and others of the
Mediterranean breed. They had acquired enough of
civilized tricks to play their parts fittingly.

But not so the Africans, who were closer to the bush,
the jungle, where their primitive sex life had been con-
trolled by ancient tribal taboos. Within those taboos
they had courted their women, married and made fami-
lies. And so it was not natural for them, so close to the
tradition of paying in cash or kind or hard labor for the
joy of a woman, to live the life of the excrescences at-
taching like mushrooms to the sexual life of civilization.
Released from their taboos, turned loose in an atmos-
phere of prostitution and perversion and trying to imi-
tate the white monkeys, it was no wonder they were
very ugly.

After the dinner the younger American created a prob-
lem. He was of middle build, wearing a fine New York
suit, reddish-brown stuff. He was the clean-shaven,
clean-cut type that might have been either a graduate
student looking at the world with the confident air of
one who is able to go anywhere, or a successful salesman
of high-class goods. He wore no horn-rimmed glasses
to hide his clear-seeing eyes, and his jaw was developing
into the kind common to the men who are earnest, big,
and prosperous in the ideals of Americanism.

"But this 'Blue Cinema, ' what is it, really?'* he de-
manded.

"I suppose it is a cinematic version of the picture

213 THE "BLUE CINEMA"

cards the guides try to sell you in the street," the leader
answered. "You don't have to go, you know."

"Oh, I'd like to see the thing, all right," replied the
young man, "but — are there colored or white persons
in the picture?"

"White, I suppose. The colored people are not as
advanced and inventive as we in such matters. Except-
ing what we teach them," the leader added, facetiously;
"they often beat us at our game when they learn."

"But she isn't going, is she?" The American indicated
the young woman. "They won't let her in a maison de
rendezvous."

"Most certainly I am. Am I not one of the party?
There isn't anything I am not old enough to see, if I
want to. Do you want to discriminate against me be-
cause I am a woman?"

"They'll let her in in any place if we pay the price,"
said the Britisher.

"But she can't go if he is going." The young man
looked at Ray.

"Oh, Ray!" The young woman laughed. "That's
what it's all about. You needn't worry about him. He
has posed in the nude for my friends and he was a per-
fectly-behaved sauvage." She stressed the word broadly.

"That's all right," said Ray to the young man. "I
am not going if you go. I am full of prejudices myself."

"Well, good night," the young man said. Abruptly
he left the party.

"My friend has done his bit for the honor of the Great
Nordic race," the remaining American remarked.

Nobody thought that the "Blue Cinema" would be
really entertaining. The leader was blase and desired
anything that was merely different. But they were all
curious, except the gentlemen bums, who had seen the

BANJO 214

show several times as guides and were indifferent. It
was very high-priced, costing fifty francs for each person.

The fee of admission was paid. In the large dim hall
they were the only audience. . . .

Before the first reel had finished the leader asked the
young woman if she preferred to go.

"No, I'd rather see it out," she said.

There was no brutal, beastly, orgiastic rite that could
rouse terror or wild-animal feeling. It was a calculating,
cold, naked abortion.

The "Blue Cinema" struck them with the full force of
a cudgel, beating them down into the depths of disgust.
Ray wondered if the men who made it had a moral
purpose in mind: to terrify and frighten away all who
saw it from that phase of life. Or was it possible that
there were human beings whose instincts were so brutal-
ized and blunted in the unsparing struggle of modern
living that they needed that special stimulating scourge
of ugliness. Perhaps. The "Blue Cinema," he had
heard, was a very flourishing business.

He was sitting against a heavy red velvet curtain.
Toward the end of the show the curtain was slightly agi-
tated, as if some one on the other side had stirred it.
He caught the curtain aside and saw some half a dozen
Chinese, conspicuous by their discolored teeth and un-
lovely bland smiles, standing among a group of girls in
a kind of alcove-room which the curtain divided from the
cinema hall. The woman of the party saw them, too,
before Ray could pull the curtain back, and gave a little
scream. The Chinese there did not surprise Ray. He
knew that they were hired to perform like monkeys.
There were other houses that specialized in Arabs, Cor-
sicans, and Negroes when they were in demand.

As they were leaving the lady president of affairs

215 THE "BLUE CINEMA"

appeared and suggested their seeing also the tableaux
vivants.

"Oh no, the dead ones were enough," replied the
leader.

"Why did you scream?" the leader asked, roughly,
when the party was in the street again.

"It was my fault," said Ray. "I pulled the curtain
back and she suddenly saw a roomful of people behind it."

"That was nothing. I saw them, too, as you did, but I
didn't scream." He turned on her again. "You say
you want to go to any place a man goes and stand any-
thing a man can stand, and yet you scream over a few
filthy Chinese."

"I'm sorry," she said. "It was out before I could
check myself."

"I suggested leaving in the beginning, but you insisted
on staying it out; I didn't expect you to scream. Did
you enjoy it?"

"It was so ugly," she said, adding: "I think I'll go to
the hotel. You men can stay, but I'm finished for to-
night."

The leader laughed and asked the American to take
her home.

"Oh, I don't need an escort. I'll just take a taxi,"
she said.

"You'd better not go alone. The taxis are not safe
this time of night," said Ray.

"I don't care whether you need an escort or not. /
am taking you to the hotel," said the American.

They walked to the main street and Ray hailed a green
Mattei taxicab. "They are run by a big company and are
safe," he said. "The unsafe ones here hang around the
shady places — just as in New York and Chicago. Some
of the private drivers are touts, and as you never know

BANJO ai6

which is which, I always recommend my friends to ride
with the Trust."

"Where shall I find you fellows afterward?" the
American asked.

"Where now?" said the leader. "After this 'blue'
refinement I should like to go to the roughest and dirtiest
place we can find."

"I think Banjo's hangout down Bum Square way is
just the place we are looking for," said Ray.

"That's the place," the Britisher agreed.

They told the American how to find it.

"Whether it is blue or any other color of the rainbow,
the cinema is for the mob," said the leader. "It will
never be an art."

"I don't agree," said Ray. "Pictorial pantomime can
be just as fine an art as any. What about Charlie
Chaplin?"

"He's an exception. A conscientious artist with a
popular appeal."

"All real art is an exception," said Ray. "You can't
condemn an art wholesale because inartistic people make
a bad business of it. The same condition exists in the
other arts. Everybody is in a wild business race and the
conscientious workers are few. It's a crazy circle of blue-
cinema people, poor conscientious artists, cynical pro-
fessionals and an indifferent public."

"You know I like the cinema for exactly the reverse
of its object," said the leader. "Because it's about the
easiest way to see what people really are under the
acting."

Ray laughed and said: "The 'Blue Cinema' was just
that," and he added: "Some of us don't need the cinema,
though, to show us up. We are so obvious."

In the Bum Square they ran into Banjo with his in-
strument.

217 THE t4BLUE CINEMA"

"Where you coming from?" Ray asked.

"Just finish performing and said bonne nuit to a kelt."

The leader was curious to know what "kelt" meant.

Banjo and Ray exchanged glances and grinned.

"That's a word in black freemasonry," explained Ray,
"but I don't object to initiating you if Banjo doesn't."

"Shoot," said Banjo.

"In the States," said Ray, "we Negroes have humor-
ous little words of our own with which we replace un-
pleasant stock words. And we often use them when we
are among white people and don't want them to know
just what we are referring to, especially when it is any-
thing delicate or taboo between the races. For example,
we have words like ofay, pink, fade, spade, Mr. Charlie,
cracker, peckawood, hoojah, and so on — nice words and
bitter. The stock is always increasing because as the
whites get on to the old words we invent new ones.
'Kelt' I picked up in Marseilles. I think Banjo brought
it here and made it popular among the boys. I don't
know if it has anything to do with 'keltic' "

"Oh no," said the leader. "Kelt is a real word of
Scottish origin, I think."

"That might explain how Banjo got it, then. He
used to live in Canada."

The party went to Banjo's hangout and the whole
gang was there drinking and dancing.

The American joined them very late, worried about
his younger friend. A panhandling Swede had accosted
him in the Bum Square and told him that he had seen his
friend in Joliette, helplessly drunk and getting into a
taxicab with a couple of mean-looking touts. The Amer-
ican had gone at once to his friend's hotel, to Joliette, and
then had searched in all the bars of the quarter, but could
not obtain any information about him.

BANJO 218

The next day he was found in a box car on a lonely
quay beyond Joliette, stripped of everything and wearing
a dirty rag of a loin-cloth for his only clothing. The
sudden and forced reversal to a savage state had shocked
him temporarily daft.

XVII. Breaking-up

WHEN the dawn came filtering down through the
Ditch, Ray left the party and staggered through
Boody Lane to find his bunk. Dengel and Ginger
had left the place before him, knocking their heads to-
gether in a drowsy roll. Malty had sprawled in a corner
over a table. The bistro man helped him to a room up-
stairs. Banjo was full and tight as a drum, but he kept
right on playing and drinking as if he were just begin-
ning a performance. Goosey was tired out, but he was
curious about the distinguished company and his desire
to keep up with it kept him awake. The gentlemen
guides had tried to persuade Ray to go with the party to
an all-night cafe off the Canebiere for a big breakfast,
"but he had declined. All the nourishment Ray needed
then was to lay his body down and rest.

Boody Lane showed no stir of life as he passed through
it. All the holes in the wall and the cafes were closed.
Not a dog, not a cat prowled through the alley. A
strange clinical odor rose from the heaps of rubbish in
the gutters, communicating to his wine-fogged senses an
unpleasant sensation as if he were in quarantine. He
had remarked that strange odor in the Ditch at regular
intervals and he could not account for it. The big hos-
pital was just on the hill above. That could not be the
source of the smell, he argued, for he had often walked
through the street right under the hospital without de-
tecting it.

219

BANJO 220

Ray's head was pounding with the tom-tom of savage
pain and his brain was in a maze, reacting against him-
self. For weeks he had been purposelessly boozing and
lazing and shutting his mind against a poem in his heart
and a story in his head, both clamoring to be heard.
There was no reason why he shouldn't do something,
and yet he couldn't do anything.

He could not sleep, although he was so tired. The
racket in his head left him unstrung. The drinking-
bout after the cinema was a stupid thing, he knew.
Couldn't expect anything but a mess from mixing myself
up like that. Every time he dozed off he woke up with a
broken dream of some vivid experience, as if his real
self did not want to go to sleep.

However, repose was so good, even though sleep
played the imp, that he had no idea how many hours he
had lain there until Banjo broke into the room, demand-
ing if he was going to sleep through the night after sleep-
ing all day.

"You can carry on sleeping forevah," said Banjo.
"I'm gwine to leave you-all. I'm gwine away to the
Meedy."

"Which Midi and who are you going away with?"
Ray asked. "You're right in the Midi now, don't you
know that?"

"Oh, I gwina away to the real Meedy down the coast
whar the swell guys hang out at."

Ray guessed at once that the leader of the party had
proposed to take Banjo along, and he said: "You'd bet-
ter stay here in Marseilles. It's no use you running off
with those people. They're no good for you."

"Ain't nothing bad foh mine, pardner. I was bohn on
the go same like you is, and Ise always ready for a
change."

"Where they taking you ?"

221

BREAKING-UP

"Nice, Monte Carlo, some a them tony raysohts. I
don't care which one. But I'm going there and don't you
fear. You hold mah place for me in Boody Lane till I
come back, mah friend."

''Boody Lane in your seat. You're a damn fool to go.
What about the orchestra? Aren't you going to fool
with that any more?"

"The orchestry! What you wanta remember it now
for? You'd fohgotten it as well as I and everybody did,
becausen theah was so many other wonderful things in
this sweet poht to take up our time. All the same,
pardner, Ise jest right in with the right folkses now to
hulp me with an orchestry."

"Help my black hide. You'll get nothing but a drunken
bath outa those people, and it's better you get that way
in the Ditch than where you're going. They can't help
themselves, much less you. You can think about an or-
chestra, but they can't think about anything. They don't
want to. I know it's no good your going with them.
I'm sorry I introduced you to them."

"Hi, pardner, what's eating you? You jealous of a
fellah just becausen they done took me instead a you?"

"You big bonehead. He wanted me to go, and it was
after I refused he asked you. I know those people.
I'm sure I can stand them better than you by being a
charming, drunk, unthinking fool. But I couldn't stand
them sober and thinking just a little bit. You won't
be able to stand them drunk or sober. I know it. You'll
cut a hell of a hog before you know what's happening.

"How do you think I've been traveling round so much
without having any money? I wasn't a steady seaman
like you. I did it by getting on to people like those for a
while. I could carry on — for a while. But I aways
got tired and quit. I can't see you carrying on with them

BANJO 222

for any time at all-— can't imagine you ever being funny
with that big lump of a buffalo."

"Well, I'm gwina try it, all the same, pardner. I know
them folks mahself just like you does. I been around
Paree with one a them once, a dandy hoojah. Didn't
I tell you about it?"

"Yes, but he was different."

"Why don't you come with us, and ef we didn't like
it we could come back together?"

"I don't want to go and they wouldn't want two of
us, crazy. One black boy is just odd enough for a little
diversion. But what do you want to quit us for? What
about Latnah?"

"You know she is mad at me. Nearly stick me with a
dagger. I leave her to Malty and you."

Perhaps Banjo did not know how great his influence
was over the beach boys. His going away with his in-
strument left them leaderless and they fell apart. And
as a psychological turn sometimes foreshadows a ma-
terial change, or vice versa, even in obscure isolated cases,
the boys felt that something was happening and realized
that it was becoming very difficult for them to gain their
unmoral bohemian subsistence as before.

They did not know that the Radical government had
fallen, that a National-Union government had come into
power, and that the franc had been arrested in its spec-
tacular fall and was being stabilized. They knew very
little about governments, and cared less. But they knew
that suddenly francs were getting scarce in their world,
meals were dearer in the eating-sheds and in the bistros,
and more sous were necessary to obtain the desirable red
wine and white, so indispensable to their existence.

However, some of them had an imperfect common-
sense knowledge of some of the things that were taking

223 BREAKING-UP

place in the important centers of the world, and that those
things were threatening to destroy their aristocratic way
of life. Great Britain's black boys, for example. They
observed that colored crews on British ships west of
Suez were becoming something of a phenomenon. Even
the colored crews on the Mediterranean coal ships, of
which they had a monopoly in the past, were being re-
placed by white crews. The beach boys felt the change,
for the white crews would not feed them the left-over
food.

The beach boys were scattered and broke. Goosey
and Bugsy had joined a gang of Arab and Mediter-
ranean laborers and were sent by a municipal agency to
work in an up-country factory. Ray had no money.
He owed rent on his room and could not obtain any
money by either begging, beseeching, versifying, or story-
telling.

Latnah solved the situation by proposing that she,
Ray, and Malty should go to the vineyards to work.
The agencies wanted hands. The pay was about thirty
francs a day, with free board and lodging and plenty of
wine. They could save their wages to return to Mar-
seilles. The harvesting would last about a month.

Ray jumped at the idea. He had been just about
fed up with the Vieux Port when he met Banjo. The
meeting and their friendship had revived his interest.
Now that Banjo was gone and the group dispersed, the
spell was broken and he felt like moving on. He tried to
get Ginger to go along. But Ginger, as an old-timer on
the docks, preferred to stay and take his chances with
Dengel.

THIRD PART

XVIII. Banjo's Return

IT WAS high, hot, golden noon. Blackened from
head to foot, clothes, hands, neck, face, a stream
of men from the coal dock filed along the Quai des
Anglais, across the suspension bridge, and into the Place
de la Joliette. There was no telling blond from dark,
yellow or brown from black.

The men were half-day workers. They circled round
the fountain in the square, stripped to the waist, and
splashed water over their bodies. From the cleansing
process emerged two black busts, and one was Banjo's.

He was remarked by Ray, who had returned with
Malty and Latnah from the vintage and were seated at a
table on a cafe terrace across from the fountain, drink-
ing tumblers of beer.

"There's ole Banjo working in coal," said Ray.

"Whar?" asked Malty. "Oh, he done find the Ditch
again, eh? Couldn't banjo it enough foh them ofays.
He musta come back jim-clean and broke-up foh gone
working in coal."

"Something musta happened to him," said Ray.

Latnah gave a cattish giggle. "Coal good for him,"
she said. "He very good look working in coal." She
giggled again.

"What's matter with coal, Latnah ?" asked Ray. "I've
worked in it, too, and I'm not ashamed, for it's better
than bumming if you can stand it."

227

BANJO 228

Banjo was passing without seeing them, on his way to
a little tramp bistro. His air was rather melancholy.
Ray called to him, and immediately he brightened up and
came swaggering up to them.

uSo you're back here again," said Ray. "I told you
you wouldn't like it. What was the matter you quit?"

"Because I wasn't any monkey business," replied
Banjo.

"What do you mean, monkey business?" asked Ray.

"Just what I done said and no moh. I was tiahed
of it befoh stahting in. It wasn't no real man's fun
with them people like it was with that cracker that done
blow me to such a swell time in Paree. It was like a
ole conjure-woman business with debbil fooling in hell
that didn't hit mah fancy right noneatall, so I jest haul
plug outa it and here I is. If Ise gwine to be monkey
business it sure is moh nacheral foh mine in the Ditch."

Banjo had returned to the Vieux Port about a fort-
night after he had left it, to find the group dispersed.

One evening when he was playing at the Rendezvous
Bar, he fell in with two Senegalese whom he had not
known before. They invited him to a bistro in a narrow,
shady lane near the St. Charles Railroad Station, where
many Arabs and Negroes and white touts lived. The
Senegalese ordered plenty of wine and expensive cognacs
and liqueurs. They treated some bistro girls to drinks.
They danced while Banjo played.

After midnight one of the Senegalese left the bistro—
to arrange a little affair, he said. When he did not re-
turn in half an hour the other Senegalese went in search
of him. None of them ever returned. The patrone
of the bistro said Banjo would have to pay for the drinks,
and the amount was a hundred and ten francs. He had
on the suit that Taloufa had redeemed for him and
looked prosperous, but he had only two francs in money.

229 BANJO'S RETURN

The woman seized his instrument and thus Banjo lost
his magic companion.

"Imagine them two cannibals playing me a cheap trick
like that," commented Banjo. And he laughed. "The
cannibals them learning the dirty liT ofay tricks quick
enough. I've been made a fool of by many a skirt, but
it's the first time a mother-plugger done got me like this
and, by Gawd ! they had to come black like the monkey
them is to do it. Yessah-boy."

With the loss of his musical instrument, Banjo deter-
mined to get himself a job. He went hustling, and far
down the docks toward Madrague he found Dengel, who
had shifted his hangout to a freighter that was under-
going repairs and manned by Senegalese. Dengel was in
his usual state and looked as if liquor was oozing from
his skin in a soft moisture of perspiration. Banjo learned
from him that a crew of black men, some of whom knew
Ginger when he was an able seaman who never funked
any work, had got him drunk and stowed him away with
them. That was the only way of getting Ginger to leave
his beloved breakwater.

Banjo told Dengel he was hunting for a job and
wanted him to help.

"What for a job?" demanded Dengel.

"Because I've got to work. I ain't got no money. I
done lost mah banjo. I ain't got nothing left, so I jest
nacherally gotta find anything that looks some'n' like
that hard-boil' ugly-mug baby they calls a job."

"Job no good. Good job no easy find," said Dengel.
"Why you no keep on as you use to?"

"Kain't no moh. Gang's all broke up and gone the
cardinal ways that every good thing dead must go."

There were two Senegalese section bosses on the docks
who hired the majority of the Senegalese when there was
work for them. One of them was always in a boisterous

BANJO 230

semi-drunken state. The other was a fine, upstanding
specimen of black man with strong white teeth and clear
eyes, a full, gorgeously-carved mouth, and smooth-shining
ebony skin. His name was Sarka. Banjo had seen him
a couple of times at the African bar. But he did not
often frequent the Vieux Port quarter. He was married
and lived in a more respectable proletarian district of
the town. Banjo got Dengel to arrange a meeting be-
tween him and Sarka at the Rendezvous Bar.

Banjo took with him to the bistro his suitcase with a
few chic articles of toilet in it. He had heard that the
boys who had jobs often had to grease the palm of the
section boss. Having been used to that in the United
States, he was prepared to meet it. He had a few sous
for wine and he relied on Dengel to help out his sparse
French vocabulary.

With an apologetic gesture Sarka turned up his palms
in reply to Banjo's demand for work. He didn't think it
was possible. Work! It was difficult nowadays. There
was a new law passed about strangers working in France.
Banjo didn't know that, eh! The hectic post-war period
when there was more work than men to do it was passing
now. Strangers who wanted work had to show a special
permit.

The new law did not in any way affect those dock
workers who were strangers. The majority of the little
bosses were Italians and when men were wanted to load
and unload ships, they took the men that were at hand.
When work was scarce the strangers yielded place to the
favorite sons, of course. And the favorite sons were
naturally Italians, who were strangers in the unnat-
uralized sense, but not foreigners in the generally ac-
cepted sense.

Banjo chinked glasses with Sarka and Dengel, gulped
down some red wine, and turned to occupy himself with

231 BANJO'S RETURN

his suitcase. He fished up a striped silk shirt and
handed it to Sarka. Sarka's eyes gleamed bigger and
whiter in his jolly, handsome face. He had seen Ameri-
can seamen with those shirts that opened all the way
down, just like the B.V.D.'s that one could put on without
ruffling the kinks in the hair after combing them. He
was eager to possess one. Now it was his without cost
— a silk one !

"Pour moi?" asked Sarka.

"Duty vous" responded Banjo, his forefinger punching
Sarka's heart. And then he nearly knocked him over
with a gorgeous oblique-striped necktie, of the kind that
college boys flaunt in America.

"Mais non!" exclaimed Sarka, and affectionately his
hand sought Banjo's shoulder.

"Oui, ouiy vous take," Banjo grinned. "Vous, mot,
amis, bons amis."

" Toujour s amis" agreed Sarka. "Demain, vous venez
me chercher aux docks. Travail."

Thus Banjo opened a way to work on the docks. And
Sarka, who hoped to go to America some day, began
learning English words from him. Some British West
Africans of the Ditch asked Banjo to introduce them to
Sarka. He did, and they, too, got work. Soon Sarka's
gang was English-speaking and he was saying to his
men: "Get down," "Come up," "Time to begin," "Stop,"
and a few more boss words.

At the African Bar it was gossiped that Sarka had
taken on the English-speaking hands in place of the
Senegalese because he touched a five-franc graft every
day from each of them. Besides, they were always
swilling wine together in the evenings and it was the
gang that paid. Banjo was Sarka's friend and chief man,
of course, and the gossip excluded him from the daily

BANJO 232

graft, but it was well known that he had given a bribe
of fancy stuff to gain Sarka's good will.

Dengel told Banjo all about the gossip and Banjo re-
plied: "I ain't worrying about them niggers' evil lip.
They c'n talk their jawbone loose. Ise used to niggers
talking. What's giving a man a shiert? Back home
wese every jackman used to scrambling foh buying jobs.
Peckawoods and niggers. It's all the same. A shiert!
Five francs ! That ain't no money. I done buy moh jobs
than I can count up in the States. I buy them offen white
mens and I buy them offen niggers. Them was big-
money days when every man was after the other fellah's
skin. Oh, Lawdy! Life is a game a skin; black skin,
white skin, sweet skin and all skin and selling one another
is living it."

Sarka did not boss his new gang very long. There
were cross-currents of rivalry and jealousy on the docks
between Italians, Arabs, Maltese, and Negroes. Sarka
got into a knife fight with two Italians, and when they
were separated, he and one of his opponents had to be
rushed to the hospital, dangerously wounded and stream-
ing blood. It was that that sent Banjo down to working
in coal.

The coal worker is a grim, special type of being,
whether he is underground or under water or above
ground. On the docks there was always an easy chance
to work in coal. But the jolly beach boys never turned
to coal when poor panhandling and hunger obliged them
to think of a temporary job. Coal that made them
blacker than they were and the flesh-eating sulphur were
the two principal commodities they avoided. A cargo
of grain or fruit was preferable when an overflow of
cargoes in port gave them a chance. Coal was not in
the line of the regular dock workers either. And so this

233 BANJO'S RETURN

general aversion saved derelict foreign drifters who
wanted to work from starving on the docks.

The irresponsible, care-free Banjo became a steady
worker in coal. Every morning he roused at five o'clock,
got into his coal rags, and hustled down to Joliette to
get into the first line of workers. Sometimes he had a
full day's work, sometimes a morning's work, sometimes
an afternoon's work, sometimes no work at all. Days
when he did nothing he sat drinking in a little bistro near
Chere Blanche's box in the Ditch. Reacting against the
trick of the Senegalese that cost him his instrument, Banjo
had made up with her again. So much messy fuss about
skin color, he reasoned, and this life business ain't nothing
but a skin game with all the skins doing it — black, yaller,
white . . . what's the difference!

Even the wine he drank afforded him little pleasure.
He never got tipsy now in the exciting, guzzling manner
of the free banjo-playing, panhandling days. As casually
as ever he had returned to hard labor again and remained
doggedly at it. Thirty and odd francs a day. Food,
wine, a pillow at Chere Blanche's. He existed now as
if those glad camaraderie days had never been.

Ray found Banjo's new condition exasperatingly mel-
ancholy and tried to talk him out of it. Days of drifting
without purpose, not knowing what tomorrow might
bring them, were altogether better, Ray argued, than the
dirty-drab contentment in which Banjo was now burying
himself. But Banjo had undergone a complete meta-
morphosis.

"The gang's done broke up, pardner, and I done lose
mah instrument. Good fun like that kain't last for-
evah. Everything works out to a change."

"But Malty and I are here. We can get together
again."

BANJO 234

"I don't think. I don't feel habitually ambitious and
musical no moh."

1 'But you used to be so different. Why, the way you
used to talk and act, living the way you talked! When
I had the blues so bad and felt like chucking everything,
it was you who made me screw up the courage to keep
plugging on. The way you were your own big strutting
self and to hell with hard life and hard knocks and one
hard hussy in the Ditch. Now you're nothing but a
poor slave nigger in coal for une putaine blanche."

"I was fed up with everything and just had to have
some human pusson close to me, pardner. I ain't back
home where I could find a honey-sweet mamma, so I just
had to take what was ready and willing. Life is a
rectangular crossways affair and the only thing to do is
to take it nacheral."

XIX. Lonesome Blue Again

EVERYTHING works out to a change." Banjo
had said a right pretty thing. The grand rhythm
of life rolled on everlastingly without beginning
or end in human comprehension, but the patterns were
ever changing, the figures moving on and passing, to be
replaced by new ones.

So the life of the Ditch remained, but for Ray the as-
pect was changed. It was gray now. And he was think-
ing of moving on and taking with him the splendid im-
pression that the beach boys' lives had left him in that
atmosphere. He would go away now while that impres-
sion was gorgeously intact, before the place palled on
him. He never liked to stay in a place beyond the point
where there was something to like about it. Though the
Ditch was dirty and stinking he had preferred it to a
better proletarian quarter because of the surprising and
warm contacts with the men of his own race and the
pecuniary help he could get from them at critical times.
Their presence had brought a keen zest to the Ditch that
made it in a way beautiful.

So Ray was preparing to move on, although he had
not many preparations to make. His baggage had con-
sisted of some books and manuscripts of which he was
now unfortunately relieved. Before going to the vintage
he had boxed them up and left the box in care of the
manager of the Seamen's Mission. He thought that
that was the safest procedure. But when he returned

a^5

BANJO 236

from the vintage the box could not be found and the
cock-eyed manager could not account for it. White
beach-combers had stolen it with the books and the
manuscripts, which included all the new things that Ray
had done and was trying to do.

''That's where I get plugged up for fooling with Chris-
tian charity," commented Ray. "I've never believed in
the thing and yet I went messing with that damned mis-
sion with the Archbishop of Canterbury's angel flying
over it. Better I had left my stuff in the African pub."

"Get you ready, hand and foot, and let's beat it away
from here," Ray apostrophized his members. Every
day he thought of going, but he hesitated, and a week
had flashed by since his talk with Banjo. He had had
money enough to take him a long way when he returned
from the vintage, but it was now considerably reduced.
There was no ship in sight with an easy place. Well,
whatever it was, he was decided about going.

One morning he went down through the docks to the
breakwater, desiring to get certain aspects of it fixed in
his memory before leaving. Returning at noon, he came
upon the apparition of Lonesome Blue in Joliette Square.

Ray had not seen Lonesome Blue since the day at the
Senegalese cafe when the boys were telling jokes. That
afternoon he had gone with Lonesome to police head-
quarters and seen the assistant chief about his case.
That official had told Ray that the police had nothing to
do about an order of expulsion but to arrest and prose-
cute the delinquent again if he did not put himself beyond
the frontiers of France. Ray tried to get a written state-
ment to that effect to take to the American consulate, but
the official said that that was a generally understood
thing.

From police headquarters he went to the American
consulate with Lonesome. The French official was right.

237 LONESOME BLUE AGAIN

They knew all about the regulations controlling depor-
tes. Ray saw the chief clerk who was in charge of ship-
ping and seaman's affairs. The chief clerk was a Britisher
of that typical breed, overbearing to common persons
and crawling to superiors, that a mere British subject
has to buck up against all over the world.

This gentleman recognized Lonesome immediately and
vented a low-down growl, such as a vicious hound might
make at a mangy mongrel daring to approach his pres-
ence.

"Hm. Yer back heah again, eh?" he said to Lone-
some. "What do yer want? I swear I'll do nothing
more for yer and I don't want you to come back to this
office." He brought his fist down on the desk.

Ray told him that he had brought Lonesome there
because the man was ill, helpless, and daft. He had
been to police headquarters and asked why the boy was
continually arrested and punished in prison for violation
of the expulsion law when he seemed incapable of acting
for himself, and they had told him that his case was
the affair of the American consular authorities and not
theirs. The chief clerk told Ray that Lonesome Blue
had refused without reason to go on the first ship he
put him on months ago, and he would do nothing further
for him. He had too many pressing cases and other
business to give any further attention to Lonesome, who
had left the United States on a foreign vessel and did
not really merit the same treatment as an American sea-
man on an American vessel.

The clerk was long and lean, with the appearance of
a woman who had suffered and grown gaunt and spidery
from never having a man. His lips were tightly com-
pressed, too repellently thin and slight to utter a hearty
laugh. He was just the little-official type that is punch-
pleased when some poor devil fails to comply with in-

BANJO 238

structions given, gets into trouble, and affords the op-
portunity to say, "I did my duty." The wretchedest
thing about him was his voice, which was a sort of un-
natural amalgam between a cockney whine and the Eng-
lish gentlemanly accent, and it grated up and down Ray's
nerves like a saw against a nail.

"But why did you come here?" he asked Ray. "Why
are yer interested in this?"

It was on Ray's tongue to say that he was there only
in the interest of common decency, but he checked that,
remembering that his purpose was not to be cleverly
sarcastic, but to try to get Lonesome Blue back to the
United States, where he might have a chance to pull
himself together among his own people. And so Ray
was humble and begged the clerk to give Lonesome an-
other chance, because he was sorry for his first mistake.
The clerk remained obdurate, and Ray went with Lone-
some to see one of the consuls.

He was ushered into the presence of the chief and he
explained Lonesome's case. Quite different from his
underling, the consul was attentive and courteous. He
reiterated that Lonesome Blue's initial blunder was a
serious one, that seamen's affairs were dealt with en-
tirely by the chief clerk, but he would speak to him and
see that the fellow was given another chance.

Ray thanked the consul and left Lonesome Blue in the
office. He did not see him again before going to the
vintage and thought that he had been shipped home.
Now, here he was like an apparition, swaying strangely
and mournfully in the square like a fading tree without
roots in the soil.

Ray's first impulse was to make a detour and pass by
without speaking, but he checked it and went over to
him. Lonesome showed no signs of surprise or pleasure
when Ray addressed him and asked what he was still

239 LONESOME BLUE AGAIN

doing in Marseilles. He was lifeless, existing mechan-
ically because the life-giving gases still gave him suste-
nance. The pimples on his face had developed into
running sores and the texture of his skin was ash gray.
His clothes were like rags eaten at by rats. The suit
was originally Ray's who had received it second-hand
from an American friend. It was too large for him
and he had given it to Lonesome. The soles of his shoes
kept contact with the uppers by being corded round his
ankles.

"Where were you all this time?" asked Ray.

"In prison again for two months. The day you left
me at the consulate the shipping-master gived me twenty
francs and tells me to come back every day until he got a
ship for me. I went and got me a room in the Ditch and
that same night the police comes and gits me right
theah in the hotel. It was the fierst time they done took
me out of a hotel. That was jest my hard luck. The
time they done gived me for the last expulsion was up
and I couldn't explain them nothing that the consul was
gwineta send me back home this time, for I ain't ac-
quainted with the language, and so I jest nacherally had
to go right on back to that awful prison."

"Well, this time you must ask the consul for some
kind of paper so that the police will keep off you until you
find a ship," said Ray.

"I don't know about getting anything moh out a them
people," said Lonesome. "I been up theah this morning
and the shipping-master bawled me out and said he
thought I was dead or gone away, and if I kain't find a
ship or stow away like any other no-count sailor, I must
die, but he ain't agwineta do nothing moh foh me. And
he chased me outa there. Maybe ef you would go back
up theah with me again that 'u'd hulp some."

BANJO 240

"I don't know. I hardly think so," said Ray. "I
think I'll try a letter this time."

That was the best and last plan he could think of. In
a talk, interrupted by questions and answers and perhaps
extraneous matters, he might miss presenting the most
important points that would help. He hadn't the law-
yer's manner of presenting facts verbally. And in this
case circumstance and condition did not permit him the
lawyer's privilege. In a letter he would review Lone-
some's case from his initial mistake of refusing to go
home the first time he was sent, his subsequent getting
into trouble and prison, and the many sentences he had
served since, practically all for the same offence. He
would say that the chief clerk was right to be angry, but
he would show that the man was ill, he had suffered, he
was sorry, and was begging for another chance to be sent
back to the country of whose ways and language he had
some understanding.

Ray thought the letter might have a little more in-
fluence if it wore the obvious respectability of this age,
so he decided to typewrite it. He went to a typewriter
agency and hired the use of a machine. Instead of giving
his address in the Ditch he borrowed the decent one of
his friend, the gentleman bum. The hotel clerk there
knew him and would take care of any reply.

He got the letter done and gave it to Lonesome Blue,
and he waited for the result at the African Cafe. In
the late afternoon Lonesome came to the bar with twenty
francs, a good pair of second-hand shoes, a serviceable
old suit that had been given to him at the Consulate, plus
a changed manner.

"I give that there letter a your'n to one a them con-
suls," he told Ray. "I don't know which one, causen I
don't know them differently. And he went up to that
shipping-master's office and gived him all that was com-

24i LONESOME BLUE AGAIN

ing to him, indeed he did. I was outside, but I was sure
listening, and I heared the shipping-master said I hadn't
acted like a knowed I was a colored boy for quitting a
ship after he done put me on it and when there is many-
skippers as don't want no colored mens. And the con-
sul said he didn't care about that, I was American and
had to be sent on back home."

Ray told Lonesome that it wasn't just because he was
American that the consul had spoken like that. It was
because his was a special case for there were many
stranded Americans abroad, white ones, that consuls did
not worry themselves about.

"Oh, I knows all about that," Lonesome said. "It's
a new day now foh cullud folks. I been reading the
cullud newspapers and there is a big organization foh
cullud people called the Unia movement of Negroes.
Ain't you heared none of it? I thought you was keep-
ing up with race progress, youse always so indiligence-
talking. Theyse got to treat us better now all ovah the
wul'. The Unia movement will makem, chappie."

"Look here, Lonesome," said Ray. "I always knew
that you were the damnedest foolest nigger-head that
ever was crazy. It is not because of any organization
that the consul is going over the chief clerk's head and
giving you another chance. Let me tell you this, as you
don't seem to know it. The two go-getting things in this
white man's civilization are force and cunning. When
you have force or power you make people do things.
When you haven't you use cunning.

"You're the poorest kinky-head I ever did see. I put
my nicest manner in a letter to get you out of this damned
fix you're in, you come shooting off your mouth full a
bull about the Unia movement. Don't think I like frig-
ging round officials. I hate it. The movement you need
is something in your block to move you away from here.

BANJO 242

You're too damnation dumb for this Frenchman's town,
which is al)out the meanest place for any fool who's got
no more in his bean than in his block "

"Oh, quit you' lecturing and let's drink up this twenty
francs," said Lonesome.

"No, damn you. I drink with fellows on the beach
who are regular fellows, but not with anything like you.
I'd drink up the last franc with Banjo, but not you.
You'd better take that money and get you a room and
report to the consul every day until you get a ship."

Ray left the cafe with something of the mixed feelings
of Banjo and the chief clerk at the consulate toward
Lonesome. He felt that it was men like Lonesome,
stupid, and utterly repulsive in their stupidity, who made
petty officials the mean creatures of bureaucracy that they
were.

He hated with all his soul the odor of bureaucratic
places, and right then he felt intensely hostile toward
Lonesome as the cause of his coming in contact with
them. He was no welfare-worker and had rather
wanted to do as Banjo had advised — leave Lonesome
alone. But he was unable to rid himself of the insistent
thought that, as he was qualified, it was the decent thing
for him to do it. He pondered the fact that his educa-
tion and a different culture had made an attitude that
was positively logical for Banjo inhumanly cowardly for
him. Banjo's back was instinctively turned away from
the Lonesome trail that leads you straight along to the
Helping-Hand brotherhood of Christian chanty with
all its sanctimonious cant. And though Ray sometimes
had to follow the Lonesome trail a little, he felt deep
down in his heart that Banjo's way was the better one
and that he would rather lose himself down that road and
be happy even to the negation of intellect.

"I think I'll leave this burg this very evening," Ray

243 LONESOME BLUE AGAIN

said aloud to himself. He felt a forceful urge to go, and
go at once, as if he feared that something else would
happen to dampen the hot, hectic, riotous rooting and
scramble of the Ditch that he wished to preserve. He
wanted always to think of it as he personally preferred
it.

He went to his lodging and paid up his rent and put
his things in a hand-bag. In the evening he returned to
the African cafe, looking for Malty and Banjo and
Latnah, to have a farewell drink. They were not there,
but Lonesome Blue was, drinking up his twenty francs
with a group of Portuguese blacks and Senegalese whose
company the beach boys spurned because it was said that
they lived off the garbage thrown from the big liners.

Lonesome was singing that hideous cockney song,
"Show me the way to go home." He waved his glass
at Ray and said: "Come on, nigger, and join the gang
and quit playing youse a white man because you got a
little book larnin\"

Ray turned his back on Lonesome and went outside,
smiling sardonically at himself. A sharp gust of wind
blew through him, a warning that cold weather was
coming soon. He buttoned up his coat and thought of
a serviceable jersey that he possessed and of an over-
coat that he possessed not.

He walked on aimlessly. Before the Monkey Bar
a crowd was collected in admiration of a new jangling
jazz, and in the Bum Square he came upon Malty, who
told him that Banjo was taken suddenly ill and was dying.

XX. The Rock of Refuge

IN HIS little chambre noire in a lodging-house of the
Ditch Banjo was bearing his pain. His kidneys were
not functioning and his belly was as tight as a drum
and hard as a rock. He sat on the little bed, hunched
up in a clenched resistance, as if trying to hold the pain
back from laying his body out. Sometimes he would lie
down on his side, his back, his belly, sometimes slide to
the floor, but always in that hard, huddled posture. Some-
times in his shiftings he could not repress a deep-down
groan, but he bore his punishment bravely like a man —
one who knows that he must take the consequences of
spurning the sheltered, cramping ways of respectability to
live like a reckless vagabond, who burns up his numbered
days gloriously and dies blazing.

"We got to get him into hospital," Ray said to Malty.

He rushed out to find a taxicab. He found one in the
Rue de la Loge whose chauffeur he knew. He had once
been a sailor at Toulon and Ray had become acquainted
with him during a winter he spent there. He had been
of service to Ray in giving him the low-down in that
interesting sailor town, and Ray had returned it by teach-
ing him the right English phrases for his frequent pick-
up trips to Nice and Marseilles, where he met the right
sort of tourists that helped eke out his wage pittance.

He had finished his compulsory service and was now,
among other things, a chauffeur at Marseilles, where his

244

245 THE ROCK OF REFUGE

English was invaluable to him as a chauffeur-guide on
the docks and in the town. He greeted Ray familiarly
when they met, but they were no longer friends. For
Ray was always with the beach boys and the Senegalese
and the chauffeur belonged to the touting set of the
Ditch who hated the beach boys and the Senegalese, espe-
cially as their special field was being invaded and disor-
ganized by the blacks.

Ray and Malty helped Banjo from the third floor
down the dim, narrow, frowsy staircase and into the
taxicab. The hospital was near a church on the hill
above the Ditch. Ray left Banjo in the taxicab and
entered the admission bureau. At the desk was a pale,
thin woman with a nose sharp-pointing upwards. She
was eating a sandwich. Ray told her about Banjo's
illness and that he would like to get him into the hos-
pital. She replied in a familiar, condescending way and
asked where Banjo came from. Banjo had declared that
he was French, but as he had nothing to prove that and
as his accent was so unmistakably Dixie, Ray said that
he came from the United States. She asked Ray if he
had a paper from the American consul sending Banjo
there. Ray said no. She told him that Banjo could be
admitted only by an order from the consul or the local
police. Ray thought it was better to go to the police.
He had had enough of the consulate with Lonesome
Blue's case.

But at the police station they wanted proof of Banjo's
residence in Marseilles. Banjo had nothing to show but
a dirty picture card that a stowaway pal had sent him
from Egypt. What the police wanted was an identity
card and that no beach boy could get.

"The man is dying for want of medical attention," said
Ray to the police officer. "You won't let him die because
he hasn't got an identity card."

BANJO 246

The police officer reddened and gave Ray a permit for
Banjo's admittance to the hospital.

When they returned the lady of the admission bureau
had something more to say before she passed Banjo in.
"You know, Sidi," she said to Ray, "our hospitals here
are all filled up with strangers, so that there is little place
for French citizens. The consuls send us patients, but
the foreign governments never pay for them. It is the
French taxpayer who must pay."

The boys had helped Banjo into the entrance and he
was sitting patiently and silently on the lower step. While
the woman was talking and before she had made out the
necessary paper, a medical student came down the stairs
and spoke to Ray. They had met in a cafe frequented
by students. He was attracted to Ray, as he also wrote
a little.

The woman, seeing that Ray was acquainted with a
superior of the hospital, completed the formality of
Banjo's admittance with dispatch and politeness.

The student was going home, but he turned back and
conducted Ray and Banjo to the emergency ward, into
an atmosphere so full of kindliness, courtesy, and solici-
tous attention that the irritation of getting there was
immediately wiped off the boys' minds. There were two
nurses, an interne, and another medical student. Banjo
was put on an operating table and given first aid, which
relieved him a little. The student stayed until that was
finished. Afterward Banjo was conducted to a regular
ward. The doctor said he would have to undergo a real
operation.

Ray stayed with him until he was settled. As soon
as Banjo was relieved, a little of the old vagabond color
came back to him and he said, "I thought I was Canaan
bound by a hellova way."

"You thought right, maybe," said Ray. "The little

247 THE ROCK OF REFUGE

street leading up here is called Montee du Saint Esprit,
which means Going up to the Holy Ghost."

"Don't mention that theah hauntsing name, pardner,
because I ain't noneatall ready for him yet."

Ray told Banjo about Lonesome Blue.

"That haunts back in this sweet poht again!" he ex-
claimed. "No wonder I done fallen ill, foh that nigger
is hard luck. Don't ask me how, but I know he ain't
nothing else."

Banjo, like the other beach boys, was superstitious.
Things they saw and people they met and shook hands
with. The food they ate. They could tell on getting
up of a morning whether their day would be lucky or un-
lucky, by the kind of thing or person they first met. Cer-
tain types of people, like Lonesome Blue, always brought
trouble. Their superstitions were logical reactions.

As for Lonesome Blue, Ray fully sympathized with
Banjo's belief that he was a bringer of bad luck.

When Ray left the ward the chauffeur was gone, al-
though he had not been paid. A couple of days later
Ray saw him and asked how much was owed. The
chauffeur replied : "Nothing at all. You were my good
comrade once and now you help a comrade who is sick
and you are poor. I don't demand anything for the
taxi."

He invited Ray into a cafe for a drink and told him
that he was going to get married in a short time. The
chauffeur had a girl in Boody Lane from whom he got
money, and he mentioned another in one of the maisons
fermes. The girl he was going to marry came from the
country. He boasted that she wore her hair long and
did not use rouge.

One day Ray saw them on a cafe terrace in the Rue
de la Republique and he was introduced. The girl was
all the chauffeur had said besides being heavy, simple

BANJO 248

and possessed of no noticeable charm. Ray supposed
that the chauffeur after dealing so much in ready-made
attractive girls desired for a wife a type that was radi-
cally different. He was buying a piece of ground and a
cottage in one of the suburbs and wanted Ray to ride
out with him and his fiancee to see it, but Ray declined,
pleading a rendezvous.

The chauffeur told Ray with the frankest gusto that,
besides his legitimate trade, he had an interest in Boody
Lane and a Maison Ferme and that he was employing all
the tricks he knew to obtain his cottage and lot and settle
down to a respectable married life.

-He was merely one illustration of the sound business
sense inherent in the life of the Ditch.

There was no mistaking the scheme of life of the
Ditch, that bawdiness was only a means toward the ulti-
mate purpose of respectability. And that was why it
was so hard on simple seamen and beach boys who came
to it with romantic ideas as a place of loose pleasure.

Ray decided that he could not think of going away
without seeing Banjo through his operation. He had
shared the boys' pleasures and it was merely decent for
him to share their troubles and do what he was in-
dividually capable of doing to help.

He had wanted very much to leave taking intact the
rough, joyous, free picture of the beach boys' life in
the regimented rhythm of the Ditch. He felt that time,
circumstance, and chance had contributed to fill it full of
a special and unique interest that he would never find
there again, and he wanted the scene to remain always in
his mind as he had reacted to it.

But life is so artistically uncompromising, it does not
care a rap about putting a hard fist through a splendid
plan and destroying our dearest artifice. So the unwel-
come reappearance of Lonesome Blue was the beginning

249 THE ROCK OF REFUGE

of a series of events that enlarged and altered greatly
the impression of the Ditch that Ray had hoped to pre-
serve.

"As them doctors am gwina cut me up, pardner," said
Banjo, "I guess you'd better write back home foh me."
Facing the prospect of an operation, with, on one hand,
his Canadian army discharge certificate which made him
in a sense British, and, on the other, the fact of his de-
portation to France as a French citizen, Banjo's thoughts
at last reluctantly turned to America as home. His par-
ents were long ago dead. He had only an aunt in a Cot-
ton-Belt town. She had raised him and a brother who
had died in adolescence. Banjo gave Ray that aunt's ad-
dress. He had last seen her in 19 13 and did not know
whether she had moved or was dead or alive.

Banjo also asked Ray to let Chere Blanche know that
he was in the hospital. Ray did so, but Chere Blanche
never stirred from her post to visit him. Latnah would
not go to see him, either. She swore that she was fin-
ished with him because he was a man who had no race
pride. But Malty got money from her with which good
things were bought for Banjo.

The boys kept him supplied with cigarettes and
sweets, although the beach was not a place of plenty now.
Wine was not allowed. Ships were few and they were
having the most difficult of panhandling times. But Ray
was in good luck. He had sold a poem, and a friend of
poets had liked it so much that she had sent him a gift
of money.

One Sunday, a week after Banjo had been admitted
to hospital, Ray and Malty took him a chicken dinner.
Ray had bought the chicken and Latnah had cooked it.
She protested weakly when Ray said he was taking a part
of the dinner to Banjo, but she did not try to prevent
him, and it was she who provided a bowl.

BANJO 250

The Hotel Dieu (so the hospital is named) presented
the aspect of a gloriously macabre picnic on this Sunday
noon. It loomed like a great gray Rock of Refuge on
the hill above the Ditch. The ultimate hope of salva-
tion for the afflicted. Below it was a church with a
wooden Christ nailed to a cross in the yard. Across the
street opposite the church was the police force. Patients
who were not bedridden flocked out on the two tiers of
verandas. Girls of the Ditch with bandaged eyes and
broken mouths and noses, and touts with knife wounds
and arms in slings, hobbling on crutches, all victims of the
bawdy riot; hollow-cheeked youths limping by; poor
pimply children of leaky, squinting eyes ; ulcerous middle-
aged men and women, and old ones learning to creep
again. From the beds against the windows, red naked
stumps of arms and legs were stuck up like grotesqueries.
Into this scene entire proletarian and bawdy families, as
well as friends, had come to share the sacred Sunday
dinner with the patients. Their children were with them
and each group gathered around the bed of the patient
to gorge and guzzle red wine amid the odors of ether and
iodine.

Banjo enjoyed his chicken feed and asked what was
new in the Ditch. Malty told of some Indian seamen
(coolies, he called them) who had come straggling down
to the African Cafe from one of the love shops the night
before. They complained that all their money was taken
away from them and that they were turned out of the
place. They had approached the police in the street, who
pretended they could not understand them. So they had
gone to the African Bar to ask if any of the blacks would
interpret for them.

"I acks them," said Malty, "why they 'lowed them
kelts to get holt a that good money a theirns. And the
best explanation one (they all speaks a turr'ble jabber-

25i THE ROCK OF REFUGE

way) he says because the kelts was such good spohts,
kidding and laughing with them."

"Laugh," said Ray. "Nobody in this Ditch knows
how to laugh. These people can't laugh. They smirk
at the color of money and the fools think that is laugh-
ing. They can't laugh, for their mouths are too tight and
their lips too thin. We Negroes can throw a real laugh
because we have big mouths."

uThat can be true," said Malty, "but them Indians
ain't much different to me. When they show their teeth
it's like a razor blade. I don't like it noneatall and I
don't trust no coolie laughing."

Malty's metaphor was striking. He had often felt
even more physically uncomfortable among Indians.
Next to Negroes, the Asiatic people with whom he always
felt at ease and among whom he always loved to be, were
the Chinese.

"I can't forgive the mean cruelty of this Ditch," con-
tinued Ray. "Why the licensed houses with the police
marching up and down before them if the seamen can't
have any protection? Are the places licensed for the
benefit of the touts or the clients? Men coming off a
ship after days and weeks at sea must need women. And
the Ditch is the most natural place for the average sea-
man. I can understand a man getting in a pickle by a
bad pick-up on the street. But when he is robbed in the
licensed places I ask what's the good of them? You
might as well have no licensed place at all, as in John
Bull's and God's own, so that if you get caught in a
sex trap you could take it as a private affair and not blame
it on the authorities, as the fellows do that get bitten
here."

"Ain't all the fellahs blaming nobody, pardner?"
laughed Banjo. "This heah Lincoln Agrippa, otherwise
Banjo, is one no-blame business. Of cohse, someathem

BANJO 252

houses is jest a trap-hole and them pohlice no better'n
a gang a cut thwoat p-i's. But it's the mens them that
make the stuff such hard business. I know more about it
than you does, pardner, 'cause Ise been moh low-down
rough-house than you. And you don't know nothing of
all what a pants-wearing bastard will do between welch-
ing on a bargain and running off and not coming across.
Tha's why the womens carry guns in them ahmpits and
keep a lot a touts foh protecting them. You mustn't
fohget that their business ain't no picnic. It is hard
labor."

Ray could not reply to this. He felt that there was
something fundamentally cruel about sex which, being
alien to his nature, was somehow incomprehensible, and
that the more civilized humanity became the more cruel
was sex. It really seemed sometimes as if there were a
war joined between civilization and sex.

And it also seemed to him that Negroes under civili-
zation were helplessly caught between the two forces.
There was an idea current among the whites that the
blacks were over-sexed. He had heard it coarsely from
ordinary whites and he had spoken frankly with intelli-
gent-minded ones about it. He had also got it from things
written by white people about the black.

But from his experience and close observation of Negro
sex life in its simplicity in the West Indies and in its
more complex forms in American and European cities,
Ray had never felt that Negroes were over-sexed in an
offensive way and he was peculiarly sensitive to that.
What he inferred was that white people had developed
sex complexes that Negroes had not. Negroes were freer
and simpler in their sex urge, and, as white people on the
whole were not, they naturally attributed over-sexed
emotions to Negroes. The Negroes' attitude toward sex
was as much removed from the English-American hypo-

253 THE ROCK OF REFUGE

critical position as it was from the naughty-boy exhibition
manner of the Continent.

Even among rough proletarians Ray never noticed in
black men those expressions of vicious contempt for sex
that generally came from the mouths of white workers.
It was as if the white man considered sex a nasty, irritat-
ing thing, while a Negro accepted it with primitive joy.
And maybe that vastly big difference of attitude was a
fundamental, unconscious cause of the antagonism be-
tween white and black brought together by civilization.

The beginning of the cold season brought the boys
straggling back to Marseilles. Ginger had made his
way back from Cardiff to Rouen, from Rouen to Bor-
deaux, and he had taken ten days, he said, to walk from
Bordeaux to Marseilles. Goosey left Bugsy at the fac-
tory, going away with a white fellow. He had wanted
to go to Paris. He got as far as a town near Lyon,
where he found a job as kitchen man in a hotel. But
under the new law the proprietor could not keep him un-
less he could obtain French papers. There was an Ameri-
can consul in the town and Goosey went and asked his
help in procuring the necessary papers. The consul was
a colored man, but Goosey did not know it, because he
was so near white. (It was Ray who told Goosey when
he returned to Marseilles that the consul was Negroid,
for he had read about him and seen his photograph in
an American Negro publication.) The consul could not
get the coveted papers for Goosey, and, faced with the
fact that he could get nowhere without them, he returned
to Marseilles. He was discouraged and became ill on
the way back. Arriving at Marseilles, he had just enough
strength to drag himself to the American consulate, from
which he was sent to the hospital. He was placed in a
ward below Banjo.

BANJO 254

The turning of the weather was detrimental to the
boys, whose scanty clothing was suitable for summer only.
It also dampened their ever-bubbling gayety. But they
all agreed that Marseilles was the most convenient port
for them. The only one missing from the group was
Bugsy. Nobody knew whether he had left the factory
or was still there.

One Saturday, when Ray went to the hospital, Banjo
told him that he expected to be operated on the next
week. As Ray was leaving, Banjo asked him almost
casually if he ever saw Chere Blanche. Ray said he had
not seen her since he took her his message, because he
did not pass frequently through Boody Lane, but he had
heard that she was still in her box.

"What do you expect, Banjo? I told you to lay off
her, because I knew she would treat you a second time just
as she did the first. Those people in the Ditch — they
can't afford to have a heart."

"I knowed she was no angel," said Banjo. "But as
she done come and made up with me without me chasing
after her a second time, she coulda leastways come and
see me once. Is that theah Latnah still hanging around?"

"Yes, she is," said Ray, "but everything is different,
you know. The gang doesn't hang together as we used to.
And you know Latnah is mad at you. Would you like
to see her?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind befoh fixing mahself foh that
cold steel business," said Banjo.

"I'll tell her," Ray said.

Latnah went to see Banjo with flowers.

"Now ain't this showing some'n' !" exclaimed Banjo.
"The whole ward'll think wese crazy. Everything comes
heah. Eats and drink and the whole shooting family,
but it's the first time this place got gifted with flowers."

255 THE ROCK OF REFUGE

They made up to each other.

"Quand on est malade, on ne garde pas la rancune,"
said Latnah.

Banjo assented. "It's a sure thing I ain't making no
preparation for the boneyard, for I jest ain'ta gwina
die. But being as Ise gwineta get down and under the
knife, it does make me feel better for all of us to be as
we uster befoh. It was a bum business we getting mad
at each other ovah a no-'count kelt."

"It was no that made me angry," said Latnah, "no
she herself. I was mad when Bugsy tell me you like
white more than colored and that you were so lucky
getting money, and every time you get it you waste all
with the white and don't remember friends. And she
after you again jest because you make a big raise "

"That Bugsy is the meanest monkey-chaser I evah
seen," cried Banjo. "Bugsy hate white folks like p'ison
and all a them look the same to him without any differ-
ence. He got mad at me 'causen I done gived five francs
to a poah hungry white kid. But all the stuff he been
handing out about me is bull. Of cohse I know mah
limentations and I know I kain't nevah wear that there
crown of glory as a pure-and-holy race saint. But I
know what I is, what I feel, and what I loves, and I ain't
nevah yet fohget that Ise cullud and that cullud is cullud
and white is some'n' else."

"I no could imagine you really love the white more
than the colored," said Latnah.

"Chuh! How could I evah love white moh'n
colored?" cried Banjo. "White folks smell like laundry
soap."

And Banjo and Latnah laughed so contagiously that
all the white patients in the ward joined them without
suspecting in the least that they were laughing at them-
selves.

XXL Official Fists

SOME time after the operation Banjo left the hospital.
Latnah volunteered to put him up until he felt
strong enough to rough it.
Ray had suggested to Banjo that when he came out of
the hospital he should go straight to the American con-
sulate to inquire for mail, as that was the address he had
given his aunt when he wrote to her. When Banjo pre-
sented himself at the consulate he found two letters from
his aunt, and one contained a ten-dollar note neatly folded
in a bit of newspaper. He was also given ten francs and
sent to a Seaman's Hotel, where his board-and-lodge
would be paid by the consulate until a boat was found
for his repatriation. He was not subjected to any ques-
tioning as to how he had come to Marseilles or how
long he had been there. N

Banjo changed the ten dollars and gave the boys of
his group ten francs a piece. To Ray he gave fifty and
kept a hundred for himself. They celebrated the eve-
ning big. Banjo, Ray, Malty, Latnah, Dengel, and some
others who had recently landed on the beach; a stripling
of a mulatto mess-boy, who was also put up in Banjo's
hotel, waiting for a ship; a Central American from one
of those complicated little Tangier-like places, who was
working all the consulates of the Latin republics as well
as the British and American ; an Egyptian black and three
British West Africans. Bugsy was still missing, and
Goosey was not with the gang.

256

257 OFFICIAL FISTS

Goosey had left the hospital before Banjo, but his
illness had scared him into careful retirement. He had
entered the hospital coughing and feverish, and had come
out quite emaciated, like a skeleton with his nigger-brown
suit hanging loose on him. The consul had put him
in the same hotel where he sent Banjo, but Goosey did
not get all that without being lectured for his obsti-
nacy in quitting his ship when he was warned not to.

The gang fed at an Italian feeding-place. There was
a grand pouring of red wine, plenty of black and green
olives, pickles, and tiny salt fishes and saucisson, maca-
roni and tomato sauce, and veal a la Milanaise. From
feeding they went to the African Cafe, with the roses of
the Ditch in their wake. Music was supplied by a tin-
panny pianola and half of the night was jazzed away
to its noise. All through the feverish coughing-spitting
jazzing there was restless movement of feet between
Boody Lane and the bistro, and when the hot tumult was
falling note over note from its high crescendo, the jazzers
pairing off, Latnah did not find her Banjo. Chere
Blanche had not vamped him this time, however, as his
emotions were as indifferent to her now as to Latnah.
Banjo was stuck in another hole of the Ditch.

Banjo bought a second-hand instrument at a bargain.
He got it at one-half the amount that he owed at the
restaurant where his original companion was held. He
redeemed his clothes from the Mont de Piete. He made
sweet music for the boys again, but the old spontaneous,
care-free happiness was not in the new gang.

For one thing, Banjo was no longer a homeless drifter.
He was safe. He had no need to worry about his keep.
He would soon be sent back home. It was splendid that
he had a few francs to help the boys during the cold
days when ships were scarce and panhandling was worth-

BANJO 258

less. But he could not share his eats at the hotel with
them. If he ate outside, he could not let one of them
have the benefit of his hotel meal. And he could not
take any of them up to his room. When the mistral
blew the freezing Atlantic gusts into the Mediterranean
and it was too shivering cold in the box car for the boys,
Latnah would sneak some of them up to her box on the
roof and Ray allowed others the floor of his chambre
noire, which he shared with the Egyptian who worked as
a watchman on the docks. But Banjo could not help.

One afternoon Goosey, with Ray, Latnah, and Malty,
was sitting on the terrace before his hotel when a tall,
slim black boy with straight jet-shiny hair came up to
them. He looked like a Somalie. The boy was one
of the gang with whom Goosey and Bugsy had gone to
work in the up-country factory. He spoke to Goosey
and told him that Bugsy was very ill in a lodging-house
in one of the alleys back from Boody Lane. They had
both come back just that week to the Ditch. He had
told Bugsy to go to the hospital, but he had refused, say-
ing he didn't like a hospital for he was afraid that they
might make away with him there. The boy had been
getting milk for him, which was all that he would take.
But he had talked all night long the night before. The
boy had been to the docks for a half a day's work, and
when he went home in the afternoon he had found Bugsy
very quiet and strange. He thought he ought to be com-
pelled to go to the hospital, and so he had come to ask
Goosey's help.

The boys and Latnah started off for the Ditch. On
the way they picked up Banjo. Bugsy was lying in one
of those little chambres noires that are among the dis-
tinctive human contributions to Mediterranean cities of
blessed sunlight and beautiful sea and blue sky, where
the tourists go for health and play. You find them in

259 OFFICIAL FISTS

Marseilles in all the third and fourth class hotels. Rooms
built, it would seem, particularly to exclude the sun.
Rooms without windows open to the air and only a tran-
som hole giving on the corridor. If you are too poor
to take a room with a window, you might be able to
afford one of these. They are suffocating enough in the
center of the city, but in the Ditch, where the great army
of dock workers live, and where the air is always humid
and the alleys are never free of garbage, they are fetid
dens.

The good sun of the Midi was splendid outside, but it
was gloomy night in Bugsy's room. Banjo turned on
the thin electric light and there he was on the dirty
bed. Strange and quiet he was indeed, as the boy had
said. He lay there like a macabre etched by the diabolic
hand of Goya. With clenched fists and eyes wide open,
as if he were going to spring at an antagonist, even if
he were God himself. He finished with life as he had
lived it, a belligerent, hard-fisted black boy.

Latnah tried to close his eyes, but only one would stay
shut, and so she tied a handkerchief over them. He had
no clothes but the rags he had died in. The boys con-
tributed things to bury him. Goosey gave his blue Charles-
ton pants, Ray an extra blue coat that he had, Banjo a
shirt and socks. The boys got together at the African
Cafe, and subscribed the cost of the funeral — fifth class
or a class near to it. The cost was only one hundred
and twenty francs, including the priest.

Latnah wanted a wreath. Ray objected. Why a
wreath? It was nonsense and wasteful. Latnah insisted
that it would look lovely to give what was once Bugsy a
wreath of flowers. Why not a wreath? Why not, in-
deed? thought Ray. And he collected the money for a
wreath. Nonsense and waste he had said. But non-
sense was often pretty. Who shall gauge or determine

BANJO 260

the true spirit that lies between the proudest or humblest
outward show and the inward feeling? And he really had
no rooted objection to waste. Why not waste money on
a tradition of flowers as on wine or non-utilitarian orna-
ments? Think of the fortunes the seamen wasted in the
Ditch and the sums the beach boys bummed and spent
for the pleasure of drinking, when there were even
poorer people than they who might have used that money
for necessary nourishment. No, he did not resent waste.
He always loved to read of millionaires spending gor-
geously. There was something sublime about waste. It
was the grand gesture that made life awesome and won-
derful. There was a magical intelligence in it that
stirred his poetic mind. Perhaps more waste would di-
minish stupidity, which was to him the most intolerable
thing about human existence.

So Bugsy had his wreath of flowers and the boys got
together behind his hearse and marched to the ceme-
tery. American, West Indian, Senegalese, British West
African and East African blacks and mulattoes, a goodly
gang of them, and one little brown woman.

A few days after Bugsy's funeral Ray moved to a
nice little hotel in the center of the town. He had a
small, cheerful room, very clean, and a window over-
looking a garden through which the morning sun poured.
Just then he was beginning to do some of the scenes of the
Ditch and he felt lifted out of himself with contentment
to sit by a sunny open window and work and hear spar-
rows chirping in the garden below. It was a solitary
delight of the spirit, different from and unrelated to the
animal joy he felt when in company with the boys in the
Ditch.

He had arrived at this state by one of those gestures
that happened to spur him on at irregular periods when

261 OFFICIAL FISTS

thought was in abeyance and he was mindlessly vegetat-
ing. A te"mperamental friend in Paris had sent him an-
other life stimulant by the hand of a young American,
who had decided to stay in Marseilles for awhile, and had
persuaded Ray to move to a respectable quarter where
they could keep in touch with each other. . . .

Ray had made the little move, although feeling that it
would have made small difference if he had finished with
the town in the Ditch. He would have to make a bigger
move before long. Where, he didn't know. Some point
in Africa, perhaps, or back to Paris, or across the pond,
following Banjo.

Soon Banjo and Goosey would be leaving. Two white
fellows had been sent back and it was their turn next.
Goosey was still rather weak, and reluctant and sad about
returning. But Banjo was worried about nothing. He
stayed on in the hotel and was happy to be taken care of.
He ate and drank a plenty, bought wine for the gang
with his extra francs, told big stories, and played the
banjo.

One morning the Egyptian with whom Ray had roomed
invited Goosey, Banjo, and Malty to take lunch on the
ship of which he was watchman. It was an American
ship and the steward was a Negro. The Egyptian had
told the steward about the boys and the steward had said
he would like to have them down to lunch. Goosey de-
clined the invitation, saying that he did not feel up to
walking down to the docks.

Banjo and Malty went. In the Joliette Square they
met Dengel and a British West African and invited them
along. But when they got to the ship an officer refused
to let them go aboard and posted a man to see that they
did not. The officer said to the white seaman: "Don't
let any of them niggers on here." Calling the boys "nig-
gers" made them angry.

BANJO 262

The West African cried out to the officer that he would
show him what "niggers" could do if he came on the
dock. "We know all you Americans hate Negroes," he
said, "but you're not in America. This is France."

The boys stood on the pier, frankly contemptuous.
They had money among them, and as Banjo could go
back to his hotel to eat, they did not really care about
the ship's food. In the meantime, unknown to them,
the officer had sent a man to inform the police. They
had just moved from the ship and were sauntering farther
down the dock when two policemen on bicycles overtook
them. The boys were taken to the police station on the
Quai du Lazaret and given a merciless beating. Each of
them was taken separately into a room by the policemen,
knocked down and kicked. Then they were turned loose.

Banjo took the matter humorously. Sitting in a cafe
that evening with Ray and the young American, whose
name was Crosby, he said: "Ise lame all ovah. They
didn't do nothing if they didn't bruise us with knuckle
and boot heel, but they know their business so damn good
you'd have to use one a them magicfying glasses to find
the marks.

"They got us jest where they wanted, so we couldn't
do nothing. And they dusted us, pardner. Fist and
feet they dusted us good and proper and didn't miss no
part but the bottom of our feets."

Ray and young Crosby thought that the case should
be reported. It seemed incredible to them that the boys
should be so brutally treated without any charge against
them, without a hearing, when they were innocent of any
illegal act. Was it because they were friendless black
drifters?

"I ain't doing nothing at all about it, nor noneathem
others, either," Banjo said. "I done told you that time
with Lonesome Blue, pardner, that them official affair

263 OFFICIAL FISTS

ain't nevah no good to get mixed up with. I jes keeps
away from them. Especially the pohlice. I do mah
stuff, but Ise always looking out foh them in every white
man's country and keeping a long ways off from them,
'causen them is all alike. We fellahs done drink up a
mess a good wine down them docks without paying any-
thing for it. If we ketch a liT hell this day — well, you
can't get away with the stuff all the time."

"Get away with the stuff nothing," said Ray. "You
fellows didn't do anything."

"But we have, though, pardner. Wese done a lot and
didn't get caught."

Often Ray had heard the Senegalese say that the
police treated them like cattle because they considered
them mere blacks. But he had no proof that that was a
general attitude. Nearly all the Negroes lived in the
Ditch or contiguous to it, and amused themselves there.
And as the life of the Ditch was so bloody brutal, the
police could not be gentle. Every week there were
rafles, and every ordinary person in the Ditch was
searched, white, brown, and black. The touts and girls
and bistro-keepers always knew in advance when a rafle
would take place. Therefore the only people that were
taken in the combing were newcomers to the Ditch, mostly
seamen who carried blackjacks or revolvers to protect
themselves against the touts. Ray had become used to
being searched in the Ditch. The police were never
polite, but he didn't expect them to be. With the identity-
card regulation and the frequent rafles the French police
had unlimited power of interference with the individual
and Ray had arrived at the conclusion that he had really
had more individual liberty under the law in the Puritan-
ridden Anglo-Saxon countries than in the land of "Lib-
erte, Egalite, et Fraternite."

That evening he went with Crosby to see the second

BANJO 264

half of the Crystal Palace show. Afterward they looked
in on two boites de nuit, which they did not like, and then
went to a big cafe, where they sat on comfortable cush-
ioned benches and talked. Crosby was younger than Ray.
A young poet who had the fanatical faith of youth in
the magic of poetry, he argued with Ray about his marked
absorption in prose. Ray contended that it seemed a
natural process to him that youth should pass from the
colorful magic of poetry to the architectural rhythm of
prose.

They parted after midnight. Crosby's hotel lay west
of the Canebiere and Ray's to the east. The east was
more respectable in Marseilles than the west. The mail
had arrived in the late evening, bringing the Paris morn-
ing newspapers. Ray took his way to his respectable quar-
ter in his most respectable rags, armed with respectabil-
ity— in the form of the Paris editions of the New York
Herald Tribune, the British Daily Mail and he Journal.

He was thinking about Banjo and the boys and of
their beating-up and philosophically wondering if the
boys had not done something to deserve the beating —
something that Banjo had not revealed in telling about
it — when passing two policemen in the street leading to
his hotel (one leaning against the door of a house and the
other standing carelessly on the pavement), he was sud-
denly grabbed without warning. The policemen started
to search him roughly and thoroughly.

Ray protested. What was it and what did they want
of him? he demanded. He had his papers and would
show them immediately. This he was proceeding to
do when the bigger policeman stunned him with a blow
of his fist on the back of the neck. He forthwith ar-
rested Ray, handcuffed him, and took him to the police
station in the bawdy quarter. The handcuff was a special
chain kind that could be tightened and loosened at will,

265 OFFICIAL FISTS

and the policeman took great pleasure in torturing Ray
on the way to the jail. There the two police wrote out
and signed a charge against him. Ray also made a signed
statement. The police quarters stank much more than
the dirtiest den of the Ditch with that odor peculiar to
jails. Ray was locked up all night and in the early
morning was told to go.

As to the why of his arrest and brutal treatment Ray
could obtain no answer. He went home and wrote a
statement of his case to the prefect. A couple of days
later he received a notice to call at police headquarters.
Crosby, who was particularly worked up over the inci-
dent, accompanied him. He was a Western-state lad of
radical persuasion. His great-grandfather had been a
frontiersman, an Indian-fighter in the struggle to win the
West for civilization. His mother, a Southern woman,
came from one of the proudest of the slave states.

At police headquarters Ray repeated his statement to
an investigating inspector, who confronted him with the
two policemen. They contradicted his story, asserting
that Ray had tried to obstruct them in doing their duty,
but he maintained his statement and further accused
them of lying.

The inspector was naturally partial to his men. He
read the statements again and then asked Ray what he
wanted. Ray hesitated, and Crosby said, "Justice." The
inspector turned and said savagely he was not talking
to him. The word "justice" had been the first to suggest
itself to Ray, but as he did not believe in that prostitute
lady who is courted and caressed by every civilized tout,
he had not pronounced her name.

The inspector then admitted that if Ray prosecuted
the case on the statement he had made, the policeman
who had struck him would lose his job. Did he want
to prosecute or not? Crosby was nudging him to pros*

BANJO 266

ecute, but Ray declared that what he really wanted was
to know why he had been beaten and arrested. Was it
because he was black? The inspector replied that the
policemen had made a mistake, owing to the fact that
all the Negroes in Marseilles were criminals.

"Oh!" Ray said, this was the first time he had heard
that Doctor Bougrat was a Negro. The police clerk
who had taken Ray's statement hid a grin behind his
palm.

(The Doctor Bougrat case had provided the excitable
Provencal city with one of its most notorious crime sen-
sations. The man had been a soldier during the war and
was seriously wounded in the head. He was a drug addict
and a hard drinker. One day the body of a cashier who
had disappeared with an unimportant sum of money was
found hidden in his office in a state of decomposition.
Doctor Bougrat declared that the man had died acci-
dentally after an injection. He was indicted for murder
and sentenced to life imprisonment and banishment. The
case had particularly impressed Ray from the way the
public reacted to it. The newspapers tried the doctor
and called him a murderer and a thief and charged him
with every criminal activity before the case went to the
courts. And on the day when the crime was reconsti-
tuted, according to French procedure, in the doctor's of-
fice, an enormous crowd gathered in the street and along
the Canebiere prolongee and the army of touts and
prostitutes who lived by the plunder of tourists and sea-
men joined their voices to that of the respectability of
the city in calling for Bougrat's blood: "Lynch him!
Lynch him !")

As he accepted his dismissal and started to go, Ray
turned to the inspector and said that when he was a boy
the French book that had moved him most was Victor
Hugo's Les Miserables. Javert, typifying the police, had

267 OFFICIAL FISTS

been particularly fascinating to him, and judging from
the inspector's statement about the Negroes of Marseilles
the French police had not changed since those days. But
had grown a little worse.

Crosby's sense of injustice was strong. He resented
the inspector's insulting manner toward him and he re-
proached Ray for not following up the case.

"But I didn't want to," protested Ray. "Do you
think I want to mess my time up fooling with the stink-
ing law, just for a policeman to lose his job? Twenty-
five francs a day and a family! That most sacred of
French things — a family on twenty-five francs a day.
Can you wonder they are what they are? When I wrote
to the prefect I didn't write for revenge, but for knowl-
edge."

"But what good is that?" said Crosby. "You only
wasted your time, since you had a chance to prosecute
and didn't. You haven't gained anything."

"Haven't I ? Don't you think it was revenge enough
for me that you, an American, half-Southerner, had to
protest to a French official about French injustice to a
Negro? The French are never tired of proclaiming
themselves the most civilized people in the world. They
think they understand Negroes, because they don't dis-
criminate against us in their bordels. They imagine that
Negroes like them. But Senghor, the Senegalese, told
me that the French were the most calculatingly cruel of
all the Europeans in Africa.

"You heard what the inspector said in explanation.
To me the policeman's fist was just a perfect expression
of the official attitude toward Negroes. Why should I
prosecute him?"

"I think you've got a little Jesus stuff in you," Crosby
said.

BANJO 268

"I don't have any Jesus stuff, nor the stuff of any other
Jew — Moses or Jeremiah or St. Paul or Rothschild."

"You don't like Jews I"

"Not any more than I do the Christians. You mustn't
iforget that the Christians were made by the Jews. Chris-
tian morality is the natural child of Jewish morality.
When I think of the Jews' special contribution as a peo-
ple to the world I always think of them as obsessed by
the idea of morality. As far as I have been able to think
it out the colored races are the special victims of biblical
morality — Christian morality. Especially the race to
which I belong.

4 "I don't think I loathe anything more than the moral-
ity of the Christians. It is false, treacherous, hypocriti-
cal. I know that, for I myself have been a victim of it
in your white world, and the conclusion I draw from it
is that the world needs to get rid of false moralities and
cultivate decent manners — not society manners, but man-
to-man decency and tolerance. S

"So — if I were to follow any of the civilized peoples,
it wouldn't be the Jews or the Christians or the Indians.
I would rather go to the Chinese- — to Confucius."

"That's a long way," remarked Crosby.

XXII. Reaction

IN THE evening Ray and Crosby had dinner together.
Afterward they sauntered along the Canebiere. The
metropolitan newspapers had arrived and a few pro-
letarian enthusiasts were marching up and down the
street, crying: "Humanite! Humanite!" Ray bought
one, saying: "Let me try contact with the printed ani-
mal. It may be better than the natural." -

They went into a cafe where Crosby had macje^a few
student acquaintances. The waiter came over to* serve
them and he said familiarly to Ray, "How is everything,
Joseph?"

"Don't call me Joseph," said Ray. "I'm not a damned
(servant like you."

Crosby, shocked, looked incredibly at Ray, as if his
ears had belied him.

"What shall I call you, then?" asked the waiter, still
pleasantly and using the familiar French tu.

"Don't tutoyer me, either," Ray said. "I don't know
you and I don't want to. You speak to me as you do
to any other stranger."

The waiter turned sullenly away.

"Good God! Why were you so hard on him?" said
Crosby. "He only meant to be friendly."

"Not in the way you think," replied Ray. " 'Joseph'
is the common French name for male servants in gen-
eral, just as 'George' is for Negro servants in America.

269

BANJO 270

He meant to be friendly, yes, the way a child is with a
dog."

"But the way you jumped on him, saying you were not
a servant like him. I was astonished • . . for you have
worked as a servant yourself."

"That's no reason why I should be sentimental about
stupid servants, Crosby. In fact, my experience puts me
in a better position than you to understand and discrimi-
nate. I worked as a menial because I was obliged to,
and I gave good service and was treated fairly enough
without being either familiar or sycophantic. I was not
a menial born like this fellow. Some people are born
menial-minded and they are not limited to any one class
of society. In America there are good darkies who find
their paradise in domestic service. But there are Negroes
who do it strictly from necessity and they are as dif-
ferent from the good darkies and your Swedish and Irish
servant cows as I am from this slimy gargon. I think
you're a sentimental radical, Crosby "

"I thought you were a proletarian," he cut in.

"Sure. That's my politics. But you never have asked
me why I prefer Proletarian to Liberal, Democrat or
Conservative."

"Well?"

"Because I hate the proletarian spawn of civilization.
They are ugly, stupid, unthinking, degraded, full of
vicious prejudices, which any demagogue can play upon
to turn them into a hell-raising mob at any time. As a
black man I have always been up against them, and I
became a revolutionist because I have not only suffered
with them, but have been victimized by them — just like
my race."

"But you have no real faith in the proletariat," said
Crosby. "Then what can you expect from proletarian
politics?"

ayi REACTION

'Tve never confused faith with politics. I should like
to see the indecent horde get its chance at the privileged
things of life, so that decency might find some place
among them. I am not fond of any kind of hogs, but I
prefer to see the well-fed ones feeding out of a well-
filled trough than the razor-backs rooting all over the
place. That's why I am against all those who are fight-
ing to keep the razor-backs from getting fat and are no
better doing it than fat swine themselves."

"If that's how you feel, your opponents may consider
it their duty to protect the pearls from the razor-backs."

"Pearls are accidental things. You don't find one in
every oyster and there may be many among the razor-
backs that the fat swine are trampling on while they pre-
tend to be protecting the few in their hands."

"Your being politically proletarian from hatred's got
me stumped," said Crosby. "I thought you loved the
proletariat."

"I love life — when it shows lovable aspects."

"The docks, for example, you seem so fond of them.
And that day I went down with you I heard the white
dockers tutoyer you and you didn't mind."

"Oh, that was different! That is the dockers' natural
language. They take me as one of them and don't worry
about distinctions. But this garcon does all the time.
He has one way of talking to the girls who sit here a
long time to sell themselves and pay him a fat tip for it;
he has another for me and another for his respectable
clients. He tutoyer me just like the herd of petty officials
of the departments — the post office, the hospital, the
identity-card bureau, even in the stores. When I ask
them not to tutoyer me, they become angry cats and want
to scratch. You see, that's their way with the Senegalese.
They do it in the manner of the Southerners who 'nigger*
the blacks in Dixie. In England all the common work-

BANJO 272

ing-people say 'darky,' but it is friendly; you feel that,
and don't mind. But all the educated people say 'nigger*
and I loathe them."

"But perhaps they, too, don't know better."

"Well, they ought to. What's all this modern educa-
tion for, then? Is it to teach something of real decency
in dealing with all kinds and classes of people or is it just
to provide polite catch-words for the most-favored classes
to use among themselves?"

The unpleasant incidents of the week, all crowding to-
gether upon him, had got Ray into an inside-boiling mood.
Crosby rather irritated him because he could not readily
comprehend his reactions. His white face and the
privileges of his white inheritance in a white universe —
all fenced him off from that goblin world that did its
mocking dance around Ray.

Crosby felt, naively, that in Europe, where there was
no problem of color, Ray would be happier than in Amer-
ica. Ray refused to accept the idea of the Negro simply
as a "problem." All of life was a problem. White peo-
ple, like red and brown people, had their problems. And
of the highest importance was the problem of the individ-
ual, from which some people thought they could escape
by joining movements. That was perhaps the cause of
that fanatical virus in many social movements that fright-
ened away sane-thinking minds.

To Ray the Negro was one significant and challenging
aspect of the human life of the world as a whole. A cer-
tain school of Negro intellectuals had contributed their
best to the "problem" by presenting the race wearing a
veil with sanctimonious Selahs. There was never any
presentation more ludicrous. From his experience, it was
white people who were the great wearers of veils, shad-
owing their lives and the lives of other peoples by
jhem. Negroes were too fond of the sunny open ways

273 REACTION

of living, to hide behind any kind of veil. If the Negro
had to be defined, there was every reason to define him
as a challenge rather than a "problem' ' to Western civi-
lization.

As they were talking, a student acquaintance joined
them at their table. The newcomer had shown a friendly
regard for Ray. He had been in Paris and had heard
black jazz players, and as he had liked the jazz musicians
and Josephine Baker, whom he had seen at the Folies
Bergere, he wanted also to like Ray. Upon seeing Hu-
manite in Ray's hand, he suddenly bristled and slammed
down the Action Francaise on the table before him.

For the first time Ray noticed in the lapel of the stu-
dent's coat a fleur-de-lys button.

"Why do you read that?" he demanded. "It isn't
French! Why don't you read a French newspaper?"

"Such as? Humanite is printed in French."

"But it is not French, all the same."

"I suppose you'd like to choose my French reading for
me. Do you want me to read the Action FranqaiseV*

"I didn't say that, but you might at least read a news-
paper that is really French, like the Petit Parisien or he
Journal."

"I hate he Journal" said Ray. "The best thing in it is
the Contes du Jour, but I am tired of all of them smirking
over a woman deceiving her husband or bourgeois lover
with a gigolo. That has no meaning after Maupassant."

"Well, you'd do better to read the Action Francaise
than Humanite. You're literary, and the editor, Daudet,
is our greatest living litterateur. He writes the best and
wittiest things about French writers, living and dead. If
you read the Action Franqaise you'll be keeping in touch
with the best things in French literature."

"Perhaps," said Ray. "I really read the Action Fran-
caise— sometimes, but I can't stand the paper when your

BANJO 274

Daudet makes political propaganda over the suicide or
murder of his fifteen-year-old boy. That makes your
Action Franqaise an obscene thing for me. You know,
although the Anglo-Saxon countries are so hypocritical,
no editor or political leader could do that in England or
America and put it over on his public. Maybe it is be-
cause the Anglo-Saxon publics are less intelligent and
more sentimental than the French. Anyway, you couldn't
play party politics with them on such a morbid issue."

"But you think that way because you don't understand
French politics," said the student. "The boy's murder
was a political act. The police murdered him. You
don't know the French police."

"Yes, I do, too," said Ray, "and I think they arc the
rottenest in the whole world."

"Don't talk like that about our police," said the stu-
dent. "It is not nice. Why do you say that?"

Crosby laughed and Ray said, "Because that's just
how I feel." .a

"I don't think you appreciate the benefits of French
civilization," said the student, angrily. "We're especially
tolerant to colored people. We treat them better than
the Anglo-Saxon nations because we are the most civilized
nation in the world."
\ "You use the same language that a hundred-per-cent
American would use to me, with a little difference in
words and emphasis," replied Ray. "Let me say that for
me there is no such animal as a civilized nation. I believe
there are a few decent minds in every nation, more or
less, yet I wouldn't put them all through the test of
Sodom and Gomorrah to find out. It is better to believe !
You're right when you say you're more tolerant toward
colored people in your country than the Anglo-Saxons
in theirs. But from what I have seen of the attitude
of this town toward Negroes and Arabs, I don't know

275 REACTION

how it would be if you Europeans had a large colored
population to handle in Europe. I hope to God you
won't ever face that. You Europeans have a wonderful
record in Africa and I suppose you're all proud of it.
The only thing lacking is that the United States should
have a hand in it too. And I hope she will. In spite of
her traditional attitude toward black folks she may be-
come as embarrassing to Europe in Africa as she is in
China."

The student abruptly left the table, and Ray felt happy
that he had angered him. He was just crammed full of
the much-touted benefits of French civilization — espe-
cially for colored people. His acquaintances, from work-
man to student, always parroted that, although he missed
the true spirit of it in their attitudes. The cocotte was
strikingly conscious of it, newspapers were full of it, and
certain clever writers insisted that Paris was the paradise
of the Aframerican. /

Ray looked deeper than the noise for the truth, and/
what he really found was a fundamental contempt for
black people quite as pronounced as in the Anglo-Saxon
lands. The common idea of the Negro did not differ
from that of the civilized world in general. There was,
if anything, an unveiled condescension in it that was gall
to a Negro who wanted to live his life free of the de-
moralizing effect of being pitied and patronized. Here,
like anywhere (as the police inspector had so clearly inti-
mated by his declaration) one black villain made all black
villains as one black tout made all black touts, one black
nigger made all black niggers, and one black failure made
all black failures.

Exceptions were not considered. Ray would have con-
sidered the white world an utterly contemptible thing
from its attitude toward the black if it were not for his
principle of stressing the exception above the average.

BANJO 276

The white mind in general approached the black world
from exactly the opposite angle. He often pondered if
an intellectual life could have been possible for him with-
out that principle to support it.

Supposing he were to react to French or any other civi-
lization solely from the faits divers columns of the news-
papers. For one crazy month of the past summer he had
read of nothing but crazy crimes : young couple dispatch-
ing their grandparents with a hatchet for a meager in-
heritance ; mother holding her children under water until
they were drowned; father seducing daughter at the
time of her first communion ; murderer shooting up street;
and all the sordid crimes d 'amour et de la passion that
were really crimes d' argent.

It could have been easy for him, a black spectator of
the drama, to seize upon and gloat over these things as
evidences of the true nature of this civilization if he had
allowed them to warp and rob him of his primitive sense
of comparative values and his instinct to see through
superficial appearances to the strange and profound vari-
ations of human life.

But life was more wonderful to savor than to indict.
Leave the indictment to the little moral creatures of
civilized justice. They had their little daggers sharpened
for the victims who were white, and when they had the
good luck to find a black victim, they made a club of him
to slay the whole Negro race.

Ray had been specially entertained by one of these
slaughterings, resulting from a terrible crime committed
by a crazy Senegalese soldier and for which the entire
black race was haled before the bar of public opinion.

It was authorized by a radical paper supporting the
radical government under whose regime the West African
Negroes were being torn out of their native soil, wrenched
away from their families and shipped to Europe to get

277 ' REACTION

acquainted with the arts of war and the disease of syphi-
lis. It was such an amusing revelation of civilized logic
that Ray had preserved it, especially as he was in tacit
agreement with the thesis while loathing the manner of
its presentation :

"Un tirailleur senegalais, pris d'on ne sait quel ver-
tigo, a fait, a. Toulon, un affreux carnage.

"On s'evertue maintenant a savoir par quelle suite
de circonstances ce noir a pu fracturer un coffre et
s'emparer des cartouches avec lesquelles il a accom-
pli le massacre.

"Qu'on le sache, soit. Mais la question me sem-
ble ailleurs. II faudrait peut-etre se mettre la main
sur le coeur et se demander s'il est bien prudent
d'apprendre a des primitifs a se servir d'un fusil.

"Je n'ignore pas qu'il y a de belles exceptions;
qu'il y a des 'negres' deputes, avocats, professeurs
et que Fun d'eux a meme obtenu le prix Goncourt.
Mais la majorite de ces 'indigenes' a peau noire sont
de grands enfants auxquels les subtilites de notre
morale echappent autant que les subtilites de notre
langue. La plus dangereuse de ces subtilites est
celle-ci :

"Tu tueras des etres humains en certaines circon-
stances que nous appelons guerre.

"Mais tu seras chatie si tu tues en dehors de ces
circonstances.

"Le Senegalais Yssima appartient a une categorie
humaine ou il est d'usage, parait-il, quand on doit
mourir de ne pas mourir seul. Le point d'honneur
consiste a en 'expedier' le plus possible avant d'etre
soi-meme expedie.

"Si cela est vrai, on voit ou peuvent conduire cer-
taines blagues de chambrees. Pour tout dire f ranche-

BANJO 278

ment, il n'est pas prudent de faire des soldats avec
des hommes dont 1'ame contient encore des replies
inexplores et pour qui notre civilisation est un vin
trop fort. Sous les bananiers originels, Yssima etait
sans doute un brave noir, en parfaite harmonie avec
la morale de sa race et les lois de la nature. Trans-
plante, deracine, il est devenue un fou sanguinaire.

"Je ne veux tirer de cet horrible fait divers aucune
conclusion. Je dis que de semblables aventures (qui
ne sont d'ailleurs pas isolees) devraient nous faire
reflechir serieusement. . . ."

Suddenly and strangely Ray felt a hard hatred for
Crosby that seemed inexplicable, and yet was not. He
had fallen into a mood in which the whole white world of
civilization appeared like an obscene phenomenon. And
Crosby sitting there by him was a freak because he was
not indecent. He was too fine a type, something too real
for Ray's frame of mind. His presence became unbear-
able.

"I am going back to the Ditch," Ray said. He frowned
at Crosby and left him without any word of explanation.

He went to his hotel and got his bag and returned to
the Ditch. It was moving out of the Ditch that caused
the policeman to take me for a criminal nosing round the
quarter of respectability, thought Ray. Better had I
stayed down here with Banjo and the boys where the
white bastards thought I ought to be. They always
searched me like a criminal down there, but they never
beat me up. I moved away from there and got myself
messed up. It was all through Crosby persuading me to
go respectable. Whenever I get mixed up with nice
people I always catch it. Better to know nice people, if
I must know them, in books, and me for living my own

279 REACTION

vagabond life. Maybe I would have felt better if the
knuckle-dusting frogs had beaten me up by mistake down
here. He felt that somebody ought to be blamed, ought
to be hated, for what had happened to him, and he
worked himself up against Crosby.

XXIII. Shake That Thing Again

RAY returned to the Ditch, and at the African Bar
„ Banjo was treating Malty, Ginger, Dengel, and
some West African boys. Banjo had received
notice from the consulate to prepare to leave in a day or
two. Ray was boisterously welcomed. Girls and their
touts were dancing to the continuous racket from the
pianola. Banjo suggested that the gang should go to
his old hangout, where he would play and they could
kick up their own racket.

The long back room in the rear of the bistro was the
boys' for spreading joy. Banjo revived "Shake That
Thing" for the party. Malty joined him blowing a little
horn or whistling, while the boys kept up a humming
monotone of accompaniment as they danced.

Front and rear the bistro was jammed — girls and touts,
and beach boys. The girls helped themselves liberally
to the boys' wine on the^ tables. Dengel, who rarely
danced, was dogging it with a boy from Grand Bassam.
A vivacious girl pointed at them and cried : "Look at that
Dengel dancing. I thought he didn't do anything but
booze."

She cut in between them and, her feminine curiosity
rising over her passion for gain, she ignored the boy from
Grand Bassam, who was new to the Ditch and supposed
to have money, and taking hold of Dengel, said "Dance

280

28 1 SHAKE THAT THING AGAIN

with me." Tall and very slim, Dengel looked like a
fine tree fern. He bent over to the girl in that manner
of swaying inebriation peculiar to him, and executed an
African jig so wildly that space had to be cleared for
them. Surprised at Dengel's rough wildness, the girl
laughed and shrieked and wiggled excitedly.

When Banjo stopped playing, she rushed up to him and
asked for the same thing again. Just at that moment
a tout entered and whispered something to the Jelly-roll
patrone of the bistro, who held up her hand and called:
"Listen ! If any of you have guns or any other weapons,
give them to me, for there's going to be a rafle tonight."

The touts handed over their guns and knives to her.
Of the colored men, only a mulatto, a Martiniquan, had
a revolver, which he gave to the woman. She put the
weapons in a drawer of the counter and locked it. A boy
who was a stranger to the quarter asked her; "You al-
ways know when the police are going to operate down
here?"

"Sure. That's understood," she said. She was near
the entrance, and stepping out into the narrow alley she
said, with a raucous laugh, "That for the police."

She reentered the bistro heaving with laughter and,
patting one of the Senegalese who was standing white-
eyed by the door, said: "Tu as vu le clair de luneTy

Hearing that the police were coming, Ray felt that he
could not stand being handled by them again just then.
He might do something crazy and get into serious
trouble. So he quietly slipped off. Just as he reached
the corner the police entered the bistro. He had to cut
across Boody Lane to reach the Bum Square, and as he
was passing he saw a policeman coming out of one of
the holes-in-the-wall and finger-wiping his long mustache

BANJO 282

as if he had just finished the most appetizing hors-d' ceuvre
in the world. Maybe.

In the Bum Square he met Latnah. Her manner was
strangely preoccupied. Ray asked her if she knew the
boys were celebrating in the Ditch. She knew, but did
not care to go.

"I think you're blue like me," said Ray. "Maybe what
we need to fix us up is a pipe dream."

"You do that, too?" Latnah asked.

"I do anything that is good for a change. All depends
on the place and the time and the second person
singular?"

"Then I have stuff," Latnah said. "We go."

They went up to her little place. She spread the col-
ored coverlet on the floor and threw down two little
cushions for pillows. She brought out a basket of
oranges and dates. And they sat down together on the
rug. A little brass plate, lamp, tube and, the iodine-like
paste strangely fascinating in its somnolent thickness.
Latnah prepared for the ritual.

"Take fruit. It good with fruit," she said.

"I know that," Ray replied.

"You know all about it," she smiled subtly. "I think
is leetle Oriental in you."

"Maybe. There's a saying in my family about some
of our people coming from East Africa. They were red-
dish, with glossy curly hair. But you have the same types
in West Africa, too. You remember the two fellows that
used to be at the African Bar during the summer? They
looked like twins and they were heavy-featured like some
Armenians."

"I think they were mulattres" said Latnah.

"No, they weren't mixed — not as we know it between
black and white today. Perhaps way back. I heard they
were Fulahs,"

283 SHAKE THAT THING AGAIN

"We all mixed up. I'm so mixed I don't know what I
am myself."

"You don't? I always wonder, Latnah, what you
really are. Except for the Chinese, I don't feel any
physical sympathy for Orientals, you know. I always
feel cold and strange and far away from them. But you
are different. I feel so close to you."

"My mother was Negresse," said Latnah. "Sudanese
or Abyssinian — I no certain. I was born at Aden. My
father I no know what he was nor who he was."

Latnah picked an orange clean of its white covering
and handed a half of it to Ray. He put his tube down
and slipped a lobe into his mouth. The incense of the
rite rose and filled the little chamber, drifting on its
atmosphere like a magic canopy. Drowsily Ray remem-
bered Limehouse and those days of repose in the quiet
dens there.

Latnah must have captured his thoughts psychically,
for she suddenly said, "It no never haunt you?"

"No. I remember it as one of the strange and
pleasant things in my life, just as another person might
recall any interesting event. But when I quit I just put
it out of my mind — forgot it and started in living dif-
ferently."

"You beaucoup Oriental," said Latnah. "Banjo never
touch anything strange like us. // est un pur sauvage du
sang." She sighed.

Ray locked her to him in his elbow. Peace and for-
getfulness in the bosom of a brown woman. Warm
brown body and restless dark body like a black root
growing down in the soft brown earth. Deep dark
passion of bodies close to the earth understanding each
other. Dark brown bodies of the earth, earthy. Dark
. . . brown . . . rich colors of the nourishing earth.
The pinks bring trouble and tumult and riot into dark

BANJO 284

lives. Leave them alone in their vanity and tigerish am-
bitions to fret and fume in their own hell, for terrible is
their world that creates disasters and catastrophes from
simple natural incidents.

A little resting from the body's aching and the mind's
trouble in sweet dreaming. Ray's hankering was for
scenes of tropical shores sifted through hectic years.
Salty-warm blue bays where black boys dive down deep
into the deep waters, where the ships shear in on foamy
waves and black youths row out to them in canoes and
black pilots bring them in to anchor. Cocoanut palms
like sentinels on the sandy shore. Black draymen com-
ing from the hilltops, singing loudly — rakish chants,
whipping up the mules bearing loads of brown sugar and
of green bunches of bananas, trailing along the winding
chalky ways down to the port.

Oh, the tropical heat of earth and body glowing in
the same rhythm of nature . . . sun-hot warmth wilting
the blood-bright hibiscus, drawing the rich creaminess
out of the lush bell-flowers, burning green fields and pas-
ture lands to crispy autumn color, and driving the brown
doves and pea doves to cover cooing under the fan-broad
cooling woodland leaves.

But he dreamed instead of Harlem . . . the fascinat-
ing forms of Harlem. The thick, sweaty, syrup-sweet
jazzing of Sheba Palace. . . . Black eyes darting out
of curious mauve frames to arrest the alert prowler . . •
little brown legs hurrying along . . . with undulating
hips and voluptuous caressing motion of feminine folds.

XXIV. The Chauffeur's Lot

AT NOON the next day Ray went out, treading on
XjL. &ir- His nature was buoyant. He went to a little
Italian restaurant and fed. In the early afternoon
he joined Goosey and Banjo on a cafe terrace.

His chauffeur friend, passing by, hailed him. He said
he was going out to look at his suburban place and asked
if Ray would like to go. Ray said he wouldn't mind
going, but that he was with Banjo and Goosey. The
chauffeur said that he would take them all if they
wanted to go. They did, but Goosey objected that the
ship might arrive and the consul call for them.

"That won't make no difference," said Banjo. "No
ship ain't nevah gwine out the same day it put in at thig
heah hallelujah poht."

"Yes, the Dollar Line boats do, too," said Goosey.

"Well if it does the skipper has got to wait on us, his
bum passengers, believe me," said Banjo. "Come on,
pardner, let's go."

Ray rode beside the chauffeur. The suburban route
was melancholy. Before he went to the vintage he had
gone out to another country place, and it had been re-
freshing then all along the way to see trailing bramble
roses in the ripened green grass and marigolds and irises
blooming in truck gardens of cauliflowers, and bunches
of tempting grapes hanging from the fences. Now there
was nothing but dead and rotting leaves everywhere and
some withered blackberries.

285

BANJO 286

The chauffeur's place was like any of the common sub-
urban lots owned by the great army of the lower middle
class of modern cities. A cottage of three rooms and a
kitchen, a young chestnut tree near the gate and a large
fig tree in the rear.

Of the lots on either side of him, the chauffeur told
the boys that one belonged to a bistro-keeper and the
other to a policeman. Ray thought his neighbors were
just right and told him so. The chauffeur smiled. He
was proud of his neighbors, too. The other lots were
worth a little more than his, he said, for they had their
water supply and he hadn't yet.

Banjo asked him how much he had paid for his place.

"Eleven thousand francs," the chauffeur replied, and
that he was still making periodical payments on it.

"Sometimes we have evening parties up here," he told
Ray.

"What kind?" Ray asked.

"If I pick up a tourist and a girl who want to take a
joy-ride I bring them out here. Anything to help pay
for the place. One night I had a gang, and it would have
been fun to have you. But you're so changed now from
when I knew you at Toulon — always with the Senegalese
— I didn't trouble."

"That's all right," said Ray. "Change is my passion.
Can't stay in one rut forever. Got to pull out and find
something new."

Goosey had detached himself from them and was in
the act of digging under the fig tree.

"What you doing there, you?" Banjo called.

They went up and found Goosey filling a little squat
glass jar with earth.

"What you doing with that theah dirt?" asked Banjo.

"To keep as a souvenir," said Goosey.

287 THE CHAUFFEUR'S LOT

"Oh, my Gawd, what a nigger, though!" Banjo horse-
laughed. "It's you should be making pohms and not Ray,
for youse the sweetest cherry-diver I evah did see."

Goosey held his jar of earth against his heart.

"It's the soil of France," he said. "I couldn't make it,
all right. I was outa luck, but I can always remember
that I was here."

"Kain't you remember without that theah flask a dirt?"
asked Banjo. "Better you tote back a flask a real Mar-
tell cognac on you' hip, for that you won't find back home
in Gawd's own, but you'll find plenty a dirt. Dirt is the
same dirt all ovah the wul' cep'n' for a liT difference
in color, maybe."

"Leave him alone," said Ray.

"You don't understand this thing, Banjo," said Goosey,
angrily, "so it's better you shut up."

The chauffeur had been listening with sentimental in-
terest and now he said to Goosey: "Vous avez raison.
La France, c'est le plus jolt coin du monde."

"How do you know that?" said Ray. "You have
never been out of it."

"Yes I have," responded the chauffeur. "IVe been
to North Africa and Spain and Italy and Constantinople.
You forget I was a sailor."

"Le's quit arguing about dirt and find the first cafe
where we can have wine," said Banjo.

Later in the afternoon they all returned to the Vieux
Port. After a parting drink with the boys the chauffeur
drove off. Ray looked after him contemplatively and
thought how differently he felt toward him now in com-
parison with the days when he knew him at Toulon. The
chauffeur's life at Toulon had been about the same kind
of animal-cunning existence that it was at present.

He had once recounted to Ray how he had been ar-
rested in a raid, when the police took from him a minia-

BANJO 288

ture ledger in which he kept a check-and-balance account
of all the extra change he made, the places and persons
(when he knew their names) that contributed to it.

The affair had been very amusing for Ray, just as it
had been amusing for him to give the chauffeur all the
tips and hints and cues he knew that he could follow up
to gain something. In his picturesque uniform, old and
overworked symbol of a free and reckless way of living,
the chauffeur's ways of eking out his means of enjoying
life did not seem at that time unbeautiful.

Living the same life now with more freedom, he ap-
peared loathsome to Ray. Perhaps it was what he was
living for that made the difference. For as to how he
was living . . . there were many luxury-clean people
who had become high and mighty by traffic in human
flesh. As a Negro Ray was particularly sensible to that
fact — that many of the titled and ennobled and fashion-
able and snobbish gentry of this age have the roots of
their fortunes in the buying and selling of black bodies.
And had he any reason to doubt that the landlords of
Boody Lane and the Ditch as a whole were collecting
that prostitute rent to live respectably and educate their
children in decency?

What made the chauffeur so unbearably ugly to him
now was that he was trafficking obscenely to scramble out
of the proletarian world into that solid respectable life,
whence he could look down on the Ditch and all such
places with the mean, evil, and cynical eyes of a respect-
able person.

"Just imagine that chauffeur paying eleven thousand
francs foh that place !" said Banjo to Ray. "Only eleven
thousand ! I coulda bought it with what money I landed
here with and have something left ovah."

"You could, all right, and yet you couldn't," said Ray.
"You and I were not made for that careful touting life.

289 THE CHAUFFEUR'S LOT

Did you ever meet, back home, a black p-i that was sav-
ing up off his women to marry respectable ? Or a brown
sob-sister chippy whining that she was doing that to sup-
port an old mother? You bet you and I never did meet
any of the black breed like that. They were all true-blue
sports in the blood.

"That chauffeur will marry with a clear conscience
from his scavenger money. He may chuck up the chauf-
feur job and buy a cafe — become a respectable pere de
famille — a good taxpayer and supporter of a strong
national government, with a firm colonial policy, while
you and I will always be the same lost black vagabonds,
because we don't know what this civilization is all about.
But my friend the chauffeur knows. It took over a thou-
sand years of lily-white culture to make him what he is.
And although he has no intelligence, he has the instinct
of civilization, Banjo, and you and I just haven't got it."

"I can't make out nothing, pardner, about that instink-
ing thing that youse talking about. But I know one thing
and that is if I ain't got the stink of life in me, I got the
juice."

Passing through the Place Sadi Carnot, the boys saw
Sister Geter being conducted down a side street by a
policeman.

"I wonder if they've arrested her?" said Ray. "Such
a long time since I've seen her, I thought she'd gone
home." He was hesitating about going to see what was
up, but Banjo said, "Let's find out, anyway, what theyse
doing with her, pardner."

"She might start that 'Black Bottom' stunt on us
again," objected Goosey, "and then — good night!"

"Oh, come on. She kain't make no moh 'Black Bot-
tom' than her nacheral," said Banjo.

The boys caught up with Sister Geter and the police-
man and Ray spoke to her. The policeman asked Ray

BANJO 290

if he knew her and what she was doing raising such a
racket in the streets. He couldn't understand her, for
she did not speak French. Ray told him that she was an
evangelist. The policeman let her go and said he had
only walked her away so that the big crowd that was col-
lecting round her in the square should disperse. The
people thought she was a high priestess of fetich Africa
and would work magie noire. He told Ray to tell her
not to preach in the streets. Sister Geter walked with
the boys toward Joliette.

"I thought you were gone away," Ray said, "so long
since I never saw you."

"No, chile, Ise right here delivering that holy message.
The Lawd Him done sent me heah with His wohd in
mah mouf, and I ain't thinking about moving nowheres
else tell Himself gimme another marching order. I been
preaching that message right along. Sometime the
pohlice comV moves me along jest like that one done
did. But they nevah hold me no time. They look at
mah bible and turn me loose.,,

"But the people kain't understand what you're preach-
ing to them, since you don't talk French," said Goosey.

"What you know 'bout understanding reeligion, yaP
boy?" demanded Sister Geter. "I belongs to the Pente-
costal Fire Baptized Believers and I ain't studying no
lang-idge but the lang-idge of faith. I was fire-baptized
in the gift of tongues and when I deliver this heah
Gawd's message" (she tapped nervously on the bible and
humped herself up, while the boys glanced apprehen-
sively at one another, thinking 'Black Bottom') "people
heahs what I say and jest gotta understand no matter
what lang-idge they speaks."

"Funny I didn't run into you again," said Ray. "I was
away for a little over a month at the vintage, but I've
been a long time back."

29i THE CHAUFFEUR'S LOT

"Yo'-all don't see me, mah chilluns, 'causen you don't
want to. For yo'-all know prexactly what's holding you
heah in this mahvelous poht, and that Ise a-preaching
against all the most deadliest sins, and theah's none
moh deadly than fohnication. Ise warning you'-all now
and straight that Gawd's sure agwina git you for all them
sins youse sweetening on and looking so good on it."

"We ain't so bad as you thinking, ma," said Banjo.
"Wese a hard-hustling bunch a regular fellahs. It's them
sweetmens back down in the Ditch you should go preach-
ing to."

"Yo'-all needs it, too. Mah message is foh you to take
it and use. Git converted, git salvation, change you'
ways a living in sweet sin. For if you don't the Lawd
him will git hold a you and wrastle with you and throw
you down on a bed a tribulation and give you the biggest
shaking you evah did get."

Banjo began softly whistling, "Shake That Thing."

They had arrived in the Place de la Joliette before the
Seamen's Bar.

"Let's go in here for a drink a soda-pop," said Banjo.

Goosey and Ray grinned.

"Take a glass with us, ma?" Banjo asked.

"No. I ain't putting mah feets in no gin shop with
Gawd's Wohd in mah hand. I sweahs off gin and any
drink that's sold in a bottle evah since I was fire-baptized,
and tha's seven years gone now."

"But there might be a sinner in here needing conver-
sion, ma," said Ray. "The Salvation Army folk don't
mind going into a saloon."

* 'Maybe it's because they loves the smell a the gin they
done sweahs off," replied Sister Geter, "but I doesn't."

She waddled away.

The boys went into the Seamen's Bar and there was

BANJO 292

Home to Harlem Jake drinking with a seaman pal at
the bar. He and Ray embraced and kissed.

"The fust time I evah French-kiss a he, chappie, but
Ise so tearing mad and glad and crazy to meet you this-
away again.,,

"That's all right, Jakie, he-men and all. Stay long
enough in any country and you'll get on to the ways and
find them natural."

Ray introduced Banjo and Goosey.

"I guess youse the two gwine back home with us," said
Jake. "I heard the skipper say some'n' about it when he
got back from the consulate."

"Well, chappie," Jake said to Ray, "we just got in
last night and wese pulling out tomorrow, so wese all
gwina get together and spread some moh joy in this heah
sweet poht tonight. What it takes to pay I've got, and
I'm gwina blow mahself big foh this hallelujah meeting-
up. Whachyu say?"

"I say O. K.," replied Ray. "But how come you here?
You remember you told me you were never going to fool
with the sea again?"

"I did say that, yes. But some moh things done hap-
pen to me after you quit Harlem, chappie."

Jake told Ray of his picking up Felice again and their
leaving Harlem for Chicago. After two years there
they had had a baby boy. And then they decided to get
married. Two years of married life passed and he could
no longer stick to Chicago, so he returned to Harlem.
But he soon found that it was not just a change of place
that was worrying him.

"I soon finds out," he said, "that it was no joymaking
business for a fellah like you' same old Jake, chappie,
to go to work reg'lar ehvery day and come home ehvery
night to the same ole pillow. Not to say that Felice
hadn't kep* it freshen' up and sweet-smelling all along.

293 THE CHAUFFEUR'S LOT

She's one sweet chile that sure knows how to make a HT
home feel good to a fellah. But it was too much home
stuff, chappie. So it done gone a year now I think that
I just stahted up one day and got me a broad. And now
it's bettah. I don't feel like running away from Felice
no moh. Whenevah I get home Ise always happy to
be with her and feel that Ise doing mah duty by Ray."

"Ray?" exclaimed Ray.

"Sure, the kid. I done name him after you. Not that
I want him to be like you in many ways. But Ise gwina
give him what I neveh had and tha's an edjucation. And
p'raps he'll learn to write pohms like you. He's a smart-
looking kid."

"You're a thousand times a better man than me, Jake.
Finding a way to carry on with a family and knuckling
down to it. I just ran away from the thing."

"You! You din't leave Agatha a li'F one, did you?"

"I leave more things than I want to remember," re-
plied Ray. "Come on, let's have another drink and get
outa here."

Banjo and Goosey hurried off to the consulate to see
what orders were there for them and Jake and Ray were
left alone to gab about Harlem before and after Prohi-
bition. Jake had found Harlem wonderfully changed
when he returned from Chicago. The Block Beautiful
had gone black and brown. One Hundred and Twenty-
fifth Street was besieged and bravely holding out for busi-
ness' sake, but the invaders, armed with nothing but loud
laughter, had swept around it and beyond. And higher
up, the race line of demarcation, Eighth Avenue, had
been pushed way back and Edgecombe, Jerome, Manhat-
tan, St. Nicholas, and other pale avenues were vividly
touched with color. The Negro realtors had done
marvels.

In Chicago, Felice had begun reading the Negro

BANJO 294

World, the organ of the Back-to-Africa movement, and
when they came back she was as interested in Liberty
Hall as in Sheba Palace. She had even worried Jake to
take a share in Black Star Line.

"Let's get on to it too, dad," she had said. "There
can be someV in it. Times is changing, and niggers am
changing, too. That great big nigger man ain't no
beauty, but, oh, lawdy ! he sure is illiquint."

But Jake had resisted Felice's new enthusiasm and it
was only a few months after their return to New York
that Liberty Hall lost Leader Marcus to the Federal
jail.

At supper time the boys came together again in the
Bum Square. Banjo, playing the square game according
to the standards of the bum fraternity, had rounded up
all the beach boys he knew to meet Jake and be treated
to drinks or hand-outs. They went to the African Bar.
Ray introduced Jake to the proprietor and the two chat-
ted a little about Harlem. Jake stood a round of drinks
for the picturesque black rabble.

Banjo, Goosey, Ray, and Jake were going to sup to-
gether. Ray suggested they should eat at an Italian
chop-house in the quarter where he sometimes fed when
he was flush with francs. The cooking there was always
well done and moderately spiced as he loved cooking to
be, and the wine one grade removed from the vin rouge
ordinaire was superb for the price and mellow to the
palate. And the proprietor could concoct the most deli-,
cious zabione.

But when the boys came to the restaurant, Jake ob-
jected to feeding there because it was next door to a
cabinet d'aisance — so much next door that if you were
a little gone in your cups you could easily mistake one
entrance for the other.

"By the britches of Gawd, chappie!" cried Jake, "what

295 THE CHAUFFEUR'S LOT

done happen to you sence you show Harlem you' black
moon. After me telling you that I want to blow to the
swellest feed there is, you bring me to a place with a
big W. C. sign ovah it. I remember when you was a deal
moh whimscriminate. When you couldn't eat the grub
on the white man's choo-choo 'causen you was afraid
the chef cook done did nastiness to it as he swoh he
would. And now "

"But just look at that!" cried Goosey. "There's the
whole family setting down to eat right in there."

Yes. At the lower end of the shop, flanked on either
side by cabinets, the family dinner was spread. A long
loaf of bread, two large bottles of red wine, and a great
basin of soup with a ladle in it. And around the table
sat husband and wife, a girl of about fourteen years, a
boy a little less, and a shrunken gray grandmother.
Clients were coming and going and the family were
swallowing their soup amid the sounds and odors of the
place, while the wife occasionally vacated her seat to
attend to business.

"But don't they have a home?" demanded Jake. "Sure
they ain't sleeping theah, then why does they wanta feed
in it?"

"I wouldn't let nobody see me do that work, much
less eat in there," said Goosey. "These people don't
know any shame."

"Shame you' trap," said Jake. "It ain't no being
ashame'. Can we niggers cry shame about any kind a
work to make a living in this big wul' of the ofays ? It
ain't doing the work, but what you make it do with
you. You remember, Ray, when you and me was on the
road together? When you done finished with that theah
pantry hole and I got outa that steaming grave, we
couldn't even stomach them lousy quahters. We was
crazy to go any place we could fohgit the whole push."

BANJO 296

"That was seven years gone, Jake," said Ray. "And
in seven years many things can change to nothing accord-
ing to law. You haven't changed any. You're a good
black American. Too American. We had a fellow in
our gang called Bugsy. He died here — died with his
eyes wide open. He was the toughest black boy I ever
knew. Yet when he found out he'd been eating horse
meat in his cook-joint, thinking it was beef, he cried

"He was a real nigger. I woulda puked," said Jake.

"One day," continued Ray, "one of my nice liberal
friends ran into me here and I happened to tell him about
Bugsy and the horse steak. And he was so surprised
that a Negro should have prejudices — especially such a
delicate sort."

"Ain't a bumbole thing delicate about a man being per-
ticular what he's putting away in his guts," said Jake.

"All the same, Jake, this place, that family. You're
in the most civilized country in the world, and you aren't
civilized enough to understand."

"I ain't what's that?" demanded Jake.

"You heard exactly what I said, ole-timer."

"Well, whether I is or ain't, you take me away from
here and show me the swellest house-of-many-pans foh
feeding in this heah poht of the frogs. Ise got enough
a them francs to blow fifty face-feeders with the few
dollars I done change. I don't know what done happen
to you in the seven years we ain't seen one anether. But
foh the sake a good ole friendship, chappie, I hope
you ain't no stink-lover."

"What kind a place you want?" asked Ray. "I don't
want to go to one a those places with a lotta stiff, hard-
faced people stuffing themselves, and flunkies that don't
know what to do with you because you aren't like them."

"And I didn't mean one a them sort," said Jake. "I

297 THE CHAUFFEUR'S LOT

mean a clean place where we can get good eats and jolly
one another and be nacheral without anybody being of-
fended."

They went to the other side of the Vieux Port on the
Quai de Rive Neuve where the restaurants specialized in
sea foods. A waiter brought them a basket of fine fish
and told them to choose. Soles, dorades, loups, mullets
— some alive and twitching. Jake insisted on having
champagne. And when the smiling head waiter submit-
ted the wine list he chose an expensive brand, Due de
Montebello, because, he said, "the name sounded lak a
mahvelous mouful."

The boys had a gorgeous time feeding and sampling
the sparkling liquor and swapping jokes, except for one
little snag, which they swept grinning over. At the third
table across from them there was a party of two women
and three men, and one of the men, who looked like a
middle-aged salesman, kept throwing phrases at the boys
in English: "It's good here, eh? . . . You like drink
fine champagne. ... I know many blacks. I been in
America. . . . You get good treatment here. Eat good,
sleep good. . . . Les filles." He smirked and leered
nastily at them and Ray told him in French :

"We don't know you and we don't want you to butt
into our party."

A look of mean hatred came into the man's face and
he replied, "You are not polite."

"I know," said Ray. "When we don't let you con-
descend to interrupt us, we're not polite, and if any of
us had tried to do the same thing with your party we
would be impertinent blacks."

The man's party paid their bill and left the restaurant
a little after the incident.

Then Goosey remarked: "You didn't have to trip him

BANJO 298

up so hard, Ray. You know in New York we couldn't
eat in a white restaurant like this."

"I don't give a white damn for that," said Ray. "If
we can't eat downtown we can eat better in Harlem. I
wouldn't give Aunt Hattie's smoky cook-shop for all the
Childs restaurants white-washed like a tomb. I guess
that puss-faced Frenchman was thinking just like you.
But all the same, if they let us into their white places,
they've got to treat us naturally like other guests. This
black boy won't stand for any condescending crap."

"Mah pardner is right, Goosey," said Banjo. "For
all you' bellyaching talk about race, youse a white man's
nigger in the bottom. You got you' haid so low down
behind that white moon, believe me, that you kain't see
nothing clear."

The Bum Square was a close, busy, bustling place
when the boys returned there. There were many ships
in port — American, English, Norwegian, Italian, and
others — and all the common seamen had come to the
quarter for amusement. It was like a pit with all things
in it — men, women, aged, infirm, boys, touts showing
their girls with ghoulish gestures, children, dogs, and
cats — all boiling in desire. But there was no free, wild
bubbling over. It was a boiling as of purchased food put
in a caldron and carefully fed with fire to a certain point.
A boiling exhibition for a strong smell of change was
in the Bum Square. Loveless eyes told and hounds' voices
barked without words the price of the circus — boxes,
balcony, gallery, parquet, pit, front and rear.

Automatically the piano-panning jumped madly out of
the Anglo-American Bar to clash rioting in the square
with that of the Monkey Bar.

"Gawd's love!" exclaimed Jake. "Ain't no wonder
you fellahs stick in this sweet mud. Fust place I evah

299 THE CHAUFFEUR'S LOT

feel mahself in a jazzing circus some'n' lak Harlem. It
shoh smells strong."

"Not like Harlem, though," said Ray. "Harlem's
smell is like animals brought in from the fields to stable.
Here it's rotten-stinking."

Jake grinned. "You remember you' send-off feed in
ole Aunt Hattie's cook-shop, chappie? You ain't fohgit
how I done told you there was no other place like Harlem
in the white man's wul'. And now foh putting a liT
Harlem stuff in this jazzing."

A young girl went by them, limping with a pathetic,
half-resentful, half-terrified look in her eyes and a fever-
hot color in her cheeks.

"See that gal?" Banjo said. "Jest a few months back
she hit this Ditch the cutest thing in it. Corned from
the country, they said, and, oh, Lawdy! if it wasn't a
rushing wild. And then blip-blap it was the hospital
next and look at her now."

They went to the Ditch to a bistro full of brown and
black and Mediterranean seamen, automatic music, stren-
uously jazzing girls, loud, ready-made laughter, and vig-
orous swilling of liquor.

Ray's friend, the chauffeur, was there, drinking and
surrounded by an admiring group of pale touting youths.
Ray went over to him for a moment. The chauffeur
asked him to join the party, but Ray pointed out that
he was with Banjo and Jake. He glanced a little in-
quiringly at the boys. The chauffeur smirked and said:
"They are all my boys. They do everything you want
them to do. Steal, murder, love in all ways, lie, and
spy."

The boys' features wore a sickly smile as they listened
to the chauffeur boosting them. Ray rejoined his group.
A little later Latnah came in with Malty and Dengel.
Latnah, peeved, unreconciled to Banjo's going away,

BANJO 300

although she had not uttered a word about it, sat rather
apart on the edge of the group. The girls of the circle
glanced resentfully at her. They could never like the
little brown woman. Although quite unobtrusive, the
superiority of her difference from them was too elo-
quently obvious.

The chauffeur left his place and went over to where
Latnah was sitting. Standing behind her, he put his
arms around her.

Latnah said, "Take you' dirty hands off me and leave
me alone."

The chauffeur laughed and said, "I am boss of every-
thing here."

"Except me," replied Latnah. "I'm not like your
Arab wench."

This Arab girl was different from the Arab-black one.
She was honey-colored, with flaky-soft shining coal hair,
deeply curled. Her mouth was not cruel, but her eyes
were mad. She was one of the chauffeur's women.

The chauffeur said: "Don't mention her any more.
I'm through with her. We had a big row and I am
finished."

Latnah smiled and said, "You've got enough of her,
eh?"

The chauffeur attempted to caress her again, but Lat-
nah's hand shot threateningly to her bosom and he backed
away from her.

"You'd better leave that woman alone," said Banjo.

Right then the Arab girl marched into the cafe. She
bent down with a funny gesture, brought a revolver up
from under her skirt and emptied it into the chauffeur.
He crumpled to the floor, and she fell upon him and began
keening: "I didn't mean to kill him. ... I didn't mean
to kill him."

XXV. Banjo's Ace of Spades

A FUNERAL was winding its way through the
Ditch. It was not the chauffeur's, but a police-
man's. He had been shot a day before the
chauffeur by a Ditch-dweller just let out of prison. In
the Ditch they said it was a story of revenge. It was a
large funeral. All the big city officials were there or
represented, black-bearded, gray-haired men, black-
clothed, decorated, beribboned and medaled. The most
important ones had orated valiantly over the corpse,
praising the valor and virtues of the force.

Obseques solenelles.

A full turnout of the force. And dutiful comrades in
service actively making the way clear for the mourning
officials and the immense crowd. Wreath-covered hearse
and carriages following, chockful of flowers. From the
church on the hill above the quarter, slowly, pompously,
and solemnly the mournful army went marching through
the Ditch and all the girls along the way crossed them-
selves and all the touts uncovered.

Directly in the line of march, Ray was sitting on the
terrace of the African Bar. Not wanting to salute, nor
be conspicuous by not saluting, a show stinking with in-
sincerity and more loathsome to see than the obscene
body of a crocodile, he got up and went inside, turning
his back on the lugubriously-comic procession.

When the noble company had passed far and away out
of the Ditch, Ray started off for Joliette to find Banjo and

301

BANJO 302

Goosey and give them the farewell hand. But in the Bum
Square he met Goosey, who had spent all the morning
hunting for Banjo. He had the consular letter from the
captain of Jake's ship on which they were to go home.
But Banjo was missing. He had not returned to the
hotel after last night's feasting and merrymaking.
Goosey had gone by all the familiar box-holes of the
place, but Banjo was not to be found in any.

"Only thing to do is go back to Joliette and wait
for him at the hotel," suggested Ray. "Then if he
doesn't show up in time, you'll have to go alone."

They went to the hotel in Joliette and waited on the
terrace over a couple bottles of beer. And when the
impatient Goosey was becoming unbearably fidgety as
the time of the boat's departure approached, Banjo came
rocking leisurely up to them.

"Good God, man, get some American pep into you and
don't act so African," cried Goosey. "Don't you know
we've got to move by the white folks' schedule time now?
You think the skipper's going to wait on us?"

"Don't excite you'se'f, yaller boy. Go you' ways with-
out me. I ain't gwine no place."

"Not going!" cried Goosey. "After the consul paid
for your board and lodging and gave you a free passage
back home? You sure joking. You remember Lonesome
Blue?"

Lonesome Blue had finally disappeared from the scene.
When a ship was found for him he had vanished. The
police could not have picked him up again, for he had
been furnished papers that gave him immunity. Nobody
knew where he had gone.

"Remember you'self, you," said Banjo. "I ain't study-
ing you nor Lonesome nor no consuls when I done finish
make up mah mind. There is many moh Gawd's own
consuls than theah is in Marcelles and this heah Lincoln

303 BANJO'S ACE OF SPADES

Agrippa, call him Banjo, has got moh tricks in his haid
than a monkey."

Goosey looked bewildered and scared of going alone.
He was shocked by Banjo's sudden desertion and felt
cheated of his strong support. His lower lip hung down
in a mournful way.

"Well, I guess I've got to go back alone," he said.
"I've been sick near death's door and would have been
in the boneyard like Bugsy if the consul hadn't helped
me out. I'm going home."

"Sure gwine back this time, eh?" Banjo grinned aloud.
"Won't take no chances telling another skipper to chase
himse'f. Yo' gwine back home to what you call them
United Snakes after you done sweahs offer them. You
was so bellyaching about race I knowed you'd bust. Ise
a gutter-snipe as you said, all right, and mah pardner
done bury his brains in the mud and we ain't singing no
Gawd's own blues "

"That hasn't got a thing to do with my going back,"
said Goosey. "I still hold to my opinion. I know what
my race has got to buck up against in this white man's
world, if you don't know and Ray with his talent don't
want to. I know what I was running away from and if I
couldn't make it over here "

"Couldn't make the point of mah righteous nose I" ex-
claimed Banjo. "Red-nigger, you kain't make nothing at
all but the stuff you was made foh. You done got carried
ovah heah by accident. And a liT French luck carried
you along upstate. But you done flopped so soon as you
got left on you' own, 'causen you ain't got no self-makings
in you. Get me ? You go right on back to them United
Snakes that you belongs to with you li'l' pot a French
dirt."

"And you'll hear from me, too, some day," said

BANJO 304

Goosey. "Some day you'll hear about me orating for
my race and telling them about the soil of liberty."

With a kind of prayerful gesture Goosey held up his
sacred souvenir.

"And you think we don't care a damn about race, eh?"
Banjo turned seriously on Goosey. "Listen and hear me,
Goosey. You evah seen a lynching?"

"No."

"I guess you hadn't. Well, I seen one down in Dixie.
And it was mah own liT brother. Jest when he was
a-growing out of a boy into a man and the juice of life
was ripening a pink temptation kept right on after him
and wouldn't let be until he was got and pulled the way
of the rope. You didn't go through the war, neither?"

"No, I didn't."

"I knowed. Because you was too young. I did because
I was jest young enough. I was in Kenada when I joined
up and I remember a buddy a mine calling me a fool
for it. I remember he said that he would only wanta
fight if they was calling him to go to Dixie to clean up
foh them crackers. But I joined up all the same, and
went through that war, for I was just crazy for a
change. And the wul' did, too. And one half of it done
murdered the other half to death. But the wul' ain't
gone a-mourning forevah because a that. Nosah. The
wul' is jazzing to fohgit."

"Except the bloody politicians," said Ray.

"They ain't in our class, pardner. Yessah. The wul'
is just keeping right on with that nacheral sweet jazzing
of life. And Ise jest gwine on right along jazzing with
the wul'. The wul' goes round and round and I keeps
right on gwine around with it. I ain't swore off nothing
like you. United Snakes nor You-whited Snakes that
a nigger jest gotta stand up to everywhere in this wul',
even in the thickest thicket in the Congo. I know that

3o5 BANJO'S ACE OF SPADES

theah's a mighty mountain a white divilment on this heah
Gawd's big ball. And niggers will find that mountain
on every foot a land that the white man done step on.
But we niggers am no angels, neither. And I guess that
if evah I went down in the bushes in the Congo, even
the canninbals them would wanta mess with mah moon
if I leave me careless, and if I runned away to the
Nothanmost pole, the icebugs would squash me frozen
stiff if I couldn't prohtect mahself. I ain't one accident-
made nigger like you, Goosey. Ise a true-blue traveling-
bohn nigger and I know life, and I knows how to take
it nacheral. I fight when I got to and I works when I
must and I lays off when I feel lazy, and I loves all the
time becausen the honey-pot a life is mah middle name.

"You got a liT book larnin', Goosey, but it jest make
you that much a bigger bonehead. You don't know
nothing when to use it right from when you should fold
it up and put it away like you does a dress suit after a
dickty party. You got a tall lot yet to larn, Goosey boy.
You go right on back to them theah United Snakes and
makem shoot a li'P snake-bite wisdom into you' and take
somathat theah goosiness outa you' moon."

The noisy honk-honking of a horn dispersed an idly-
gossiping group in the middle of the streets as a taxicab
dashed through them and swerved to a stop before the
hotel. Out of it jumped Jake.

"I done took it in mah haid to come and get you
fellahs," he said. "Because after that theah goodest of
time last night, I got to thinking you-all might be feeling
too sweet in you' skin to get outa it for that unrighteous
sea change. So here I is with taxi and everything to make
sure you-all don't get left."

"Youse one most faithfully buddy," Banjo grinned.
"But Ise jest finish explaining to Goosey heah that Ise
most gratiate to the consul foh hulping me this far along,

BANJO 306

but I ain't gwine no further. And I was a-telling him
like a wise old-timer to dust his feets and make that
boat alone befoh it miss him, foh this nigger ain't gwine
no place."

"Ain't going !"

Jake grinned. Banjo grinned. Ray grinned. Goosey
only was glum. Jake understood Banjo too thoroughly
to ask any questions. He enjoyed the situation. For a
moment he felt strangely moved to throw himself in with
Banjo and send Goosey back alone to the ship. But the
next moment he reflected that he was no longer a wild
stallion, but a draft horse in harness now with the bit in
his mouth and the crupper under his tail, and — that he
liked it.

The taxicab slowly trailing them, the boys crossed
down the street and into the Seamen's Bar, where they
stood at the counter, a V Americaine > for the final drink
together.

"When is you coming back to look us over?" Jake
asked Ray.

"When the train puts me off," said Ray. "I like this
rolling along, stopping anywhere I'm put off or thrown
off. Like Banjo. I may get off to see you one a these
days if the train pass your way."

"Well, when youse tired a rowling, if evah a broad
evacuate you on any a them Gawd's own beach, you point
you' nose straight foh Harlem. And if it is even in
the middle of the night you get theah, we'll put out that
elevator runner that lodging with us and make room to
take you on."

They drove from the Joliette square down the docks
to the ship, where they said good-bye. As Goosey went
up the gang-plank after Jake, Banjo called out again:

"Go'-by, Gawd blimey you, Goosey, and don't fohgit
what I done told you. Put it in you' flute and blow it."

3o7 BANJO'S ACE OF SPADES

Banjo and Ray wandered casually along the docks.
Workmen were busy completing the big new American
warehouse. The hand trucks were noisy on the paving
stones with the shifting of boxes and barrels and the
loading and unloading of ships. The eternal harvest
of the world on the docks. African hard wood, African
rubber, African ivory, African skins. Asia's gifts of crisp
fragrant leaves and the fabled old spices with grain and
oil and iron. All floated through the oceans into this
warm Western harbor where, waiting to be floated back
again, were the Occident's gifts. Immense crates, bar-
rels, cases of automobiles, pianos, player-pianos, furni-
ture; sand-papered, spliced, and varnished wood; calico
print, artificial silk; pretty shoes and boots; French wines,
British whiskeys, and a thousand little salesmen-made
goods. Composite essence of the soil of all lands.

Commerce ! Of all words the most magical. The
timbre, color, form, the strength and grandeur of it.
Triumphant over all human and natural obstacles, sub-
lime yet forever going hand in hand with the bitch,
Bawdy. In all relationships, between nations, between
individuals, between little peoples and big peoples, pro-
gressive and primitive, the two lovers spread and flourish
together as if one were the inevitable complement of the
other.

Ray was wondering if it could have been otherwise —
if it were madness to imagine the gorgeous concourse
of civilization, past, present and to be, without these
two creatures of man's appetites spreading themselves
together, when Banjo said:

"Wha's working on you, pardner?"

"Me? Oh, just when are we going to get outa here?"

"Fed up with the ole poht, eh, scared of it gitting you
now?"

BANJO 308

"No fear* I've got this burg balled up with a mean
hold on 'em."

"Nuts is good dessert, pardner, but I ain't seen no
monkey antics yet."

"You will when the exhibition is open."

A Peninsular and Oriental boat had entered a basin
farther up the docks and the boys rounded some ware-
houses to reach it. When they got there they found
Malty and Ginger panhandling. The crew was Indian.

"Ain't nevah nothing doing on a coolie-jabbering
boat," said Malty, deprecatingly, "but it ain't costing us
nothing noways to hang around."

"The A-rabs am the best of them people for a hand-
out on a broad," said Banjo.

There was a company of British soldiers on board
and on the upper decks groups of tall, svelte, dignified
Indians were conspicuous among the European passen-
gers.

A knot of Senegalese were gathered a little way off to
themselves, with their eyes on the galley. Three Indian
boys of the beach were signaling to the Indian cooks
against the railing above. The cooks seemed unheed-
ing, looking down unsympathetically on the dark rabble
beneath them. At last one of them went to the kitchen,
returning with a paper packet which he threw down to
the three Indian boys. The packet burst, scattering a
mess of curried food in the dust. With nervous eager-
ness the boys seized the packet and scraped up the food
from the ground.

The knot of Senegalese began stirring with excitement
as their eyes turned the other way from the boat and
saw a little cart rumble by them. It bore two scavenger-
like whites and came to a halt near the gangway. They
had come to get the garbage of the great liner, that was

3o9 BANJO'S ACE OF SPADES

not dumped overboard, but brought into port and sold
for the feeding of pigs.

Kitchen boys, two to each can, toted the garbage down
the gangplank to dump it in the cart. The rank stuff
was rushed and raided by the hungry black men. Out of
the slime, the guts of game and poultry, the peelings
of vegetables, they fished up pieces of ham, mutton, beef,
poultry, and tore savagely at them with their teeth. They
fought against one another for the best pieces. One
mighty fellow sent a rival sprawling on his back from
a can and dominated it until he had extracted some
precious knuckles of bones with flesh upon them. Another
brought up a decomposed rat which he dashed into the
water, and wiping his hand on the sand, dived back again
into the can. There were also two white men in the
rush. A small Southern European was worsted in the
struggle and knocked down, while a big Swede, with
the appearance of a great mass of hard mildewed putty,
held his own.

"Look at the niggers! Look at the niggers!'' the
passengers on deck cried, and some of them went and
got cameras to photograph the scene.

Once when Ray was badly broke he had gone with
Bugsy to sell an American suit and shirt to a young
West African called Cuffee. Many of them, British and
French black boys, clubbed together in a big room that
took up half of a floor, for which each paid two francs
a day. They were cooking when Ray got there; the
smell of the stuff was good and he was hungry. They
offered him some, but Bugsy whispered to him not to
eat, because he had seen them picking over the garbage
of the docks.

The Africans did not understand the art of pan-
handling as did the American and West Indian Negroes.
When they could get no work on the docks they would

BANJO 310

not beg food of any ship that was not manned by their
own countrymen speaking their language. Seamen who
came in with money would help their fellows ashore.
But outside of their own primitive circle the African
boys were helpless.

"Ain't you ashamed a you' race?'' Banjo asked Ray.

"Why you think? We've been down to the garbage
line ourselves."

"Not to eat it, though. I'd sooner do sorae'n' inlegal
and ketch jail."

"It's just a difference a stomach," said Ray. "Some
stomachs are different from others." He remembered
the time he had worked as a waiter in hotels and how
the feeding of certain of the guests was always an in-
teresting spectacle for him. They were those pink-eared,
purple-veined, respectable pillars of society who in a
refined atmosphere of service always stirred up in him
an impression of obscenity. Their bellies seemed to him
like coarse sacks that needed only to be filled up and
rammed down with a multitude of foodstuffs.

It was a long way from them to these stranded and
lost black creatures of colonization who ate garbage to
appease the insistent demands of the belly. At night they
would go to the African Bar and dance it away.

"Taloufa is right heah with us again," said Malty.

"Taloufa back in this burg?" exclaimed Banjo.

"You betchyu he sure is. And ef you got anything foh
helping him, git it ready, for he ain't nothing this time
more'n a plumb broke nigger."

The boys found Taloufa at the Seamen's Bar in Joli-
ette, with his guitar, and a bow of colored ribbons deco-
rating it, broke but unbroken. He was talking to an
Indian, a thin, gray-haired man.

"I thought you were in England," said Ray.

"Wouldn't let me in," replied Taloufa.

3ii BANJO'S AGE OF SPADES

"How you mean wouldn't let you in?"

From a set of papers in his pocketbook Taloufa ex-
tracted a slip and handed it to Ray.

The paper bore Taloufa's name and fingerprint and
read :

"The above-named is permitted to land at this
port on condition that he proceeds to London in
charge of an official of the Shipping Federation, ob-
tains document of identity at the Home Office, and
visa (if required), and leaves the United Kingdom
at the earliest opportunity.

(Signed) . ...

Immigration Officer."

When Taloufa arrived in England, the authorities
would not permit him to land, but wanted him to go home
direct to West Africa. Taloufa did not want to go there.
Christian missionaries had educated him out of his native
life. A Christian European had uplifted him out of and
away from his people and his home. His memory of his
past was vague. He did not know what had become of
his family.

He tried to convince the authorities that he had a right
to land in England. He had friends in Limehouse and
in Cardiff. He had even a little property in the shape
of a trunk and suitcase and clothes that he had left be-
hind when he failed to return from his last American
voyage. Nevertheless, he was permitted to land only
to see about his affairs and under supervision.

Colored subjects were not wanted in Britain.

This was the chief topic of serious talk among colored
seamen in all the ports. Black and brown men being
sent back to West Africa, East Africa, the Arabian
coast, and India, showed one another their papers and

BANJO 312

held sharp and bitter discussions in the rough cafes of
Joliette and the Vieux Port.

The majority of the papers were distinguished by the
official phrase : Nationality Doubtful.

Colored seamen who had lived their lives in the great
careless tradition, and had lost their papers in low-down
places to touts, hold-up men, and passport fabricators,
and were unable or too ignorant to show exact proof
of their birthplace, were furnished with the new "Nation-
ality Doubtful" papers. West Africans, East Africans,
South Africans, West Indians, Arabs, and Indians — they
were all mixed up together. Some of the Indians and
Arabs were being given a free trip back to their lands.
Others, especially the Negroes, had chosen to stop off in
French ports, where the regulations were less stringent.
They were agreed that the British authorities were using
every device to get all the colored seamen out of Britain
and keep them out, so that white men should have their
jobs.

Taloufa, under supervision, had crossed from England
to Havre, had gone to Paris and, his money exhausted,
had come to Marseilles to get a ship in any way he could.
The Indian conversing with him was a unique case. Gray-
haired, with a fine, thin, ancient, patient face, he was
brown and brittle like a reed. He had left India as a
ship's boy when he was so small that he could not recall
anything of his people or his home. He had been a
steward on English ships for years, before and all during
the war.

One day, he said, he came in from a voyage and the
medical officer for the local Seamen's Union put him on
the sick list and took him off his ship. He said he was
not ill, but he knew that the union officials were replacing
colored seamen with white by any means. He went to a
reputable private doctor and received a certificate attest-

3i3 BANJO'S AGE OF SPADES

ing that he was not ill. He took it to the local official
of his union, but that official ignored him. He had al-
ready put a white man in the Indian's place as steward.
In a fit of anger the Indian foolishly tore up his union
card and left the local office.

Weeks and months passed and he did not get another
job. One day he was persuaded to take a place on a
boat that was going out to stay in service in the East.
But when he reached Marseilles, where the crew was to
sign on, the steward changed his mind about going to
the Far East on a ''Nationality Doubtful" paper. Then
he came up against the fact that he could not get back
into England where he had lived for over forty years.
He was six weeks on the beach in Marseilles. He had a
pile of foolscap correspondence with the British Home
Office. He was a "Nationality Doubtful" man with no
place to go.

This was the way of civilization with the colored man,
especially the black. The happenings of the past few
weeks from the beating up of the beach boys by the
police to the story of Talouf a's experiences, were, to Ray,
all of a piece. A clear and eloquent exhibition of the
universal attitude, which, though the method varied, was
little different anywhere.

When the police inspector said to Ray that the strong
arm of the law was against Negroes because they were
all criminals, he really did not mean just that. For he
knew that the big and terror-striking criminals were not
Negroes. What he unconsciously meant was that the
police were strong-armed against the happy irresponsi-
bility of the Negro in the face of civilization.

For civilization had gone out among these native,
earthy people, had despoiled them of their primitive soil,
had uprooted, enchained, transported, and transformed

BANJO 3H

them to labor under its laws, and yet lacked the spirit to
tolerate them within its walls.

That this primitive child, this kinky-headed, big-laugh-
ing black boy of the world, did not go down and disap-
pear under the serried crush of trampling white feet;
that he managed to remain on the scene, not worldly-
wise, not "getting there," yet not machine-made, nor
poor-in-spirit like the regimented creatures of civiliza-
tion, was baffling to civilized understanding. Before the
grim, pale rider-down of souls he went his careless way
with a primitive hoofing and a grin.

Thus he became a challenge to the clubbers of helpless
vagabonds — to the despised, underpaid protectors of
property and its high personages. He was a challenge
of civilization itself. He was the red rag to the mighty-
bellowing, all-trampling civilized bull.

Looking down in a bull ring, you are fascinated by the
gay rag. You may even forget the man watching the
bull go after the elusive color that makes him mad. The
rag seems more than the man. If the bull win it, he
horns it, tramples it, sniffs it, paws it — baffled.

As the rag is to the bull, so is the composite voice of
the Negro — speech, song and laughter — to a bawdy
world. More exasperating, indeed, than the Negro's be-
ing himself is his primitive color in a world where
everything is being reduced to a familiar formula, this
remains strange and elusive.

From the rear room of the cafe came sounds of music,
shuffling of feet, shrill feminine cackle, and Malty's deep,
far-carrying laughter. Banjo was at his instrument again.
Presently Malty dashed in.

"For the love a life, Taloufy, come on in heah and
play that holy wonderful new thing you done bring back
heah with you."

315 BANJO'S ACE OF SPADES

"Wait a minute "

"Wait you' moon! You come right along and make
that mahvelous music and fohgit the white man's crap."

Taloufa followed Malty with his guitar. His new
piece was a tormenting, tantalizing, tickling tintinnabu-
lating thing that he called "Hallelujah Jig" and it went
like this:

"Jigaway, boy, jig. . . . jig, jig, jig, jig, jig, jig, jig
Jig. jig, jig, black boy ... jig away ... jig away. . . .

"Lay off the coal, boy, and scrub you' hide,
Jigaway . . . jigaway.
Bring me a clean suit and show some pride,
Jigaway . . . jigaway.

"Step on the floor, boy, and show me that stuff
Jigaway . . . jigaway,
Strutting you* business and strutting it rough,
Jigaway . . . jigaway.

"Show me some movement and turn 'em loose,
Jigaway . . . jigaway,
Powerfulways like electric juice,

Jigaway . . . jigaway.

"Up the ole broad, boy; good nite to the bunk,

Jigaway . . . jigaway,
What you say, fellahs? I say hunky-tunk,
Jigaway . . . jigaway.

"When the lights go out until the stars fade,

Jigaway . . . jigaway,

For that's the bestest thing in the life of a spade,

Jigaway . . . jigaway.

"Jigaway, boy, jig, jig, jig, jig, jig, jig, jig, jig,
Jig, jig, jig, black boy ... jig away ... jig away. . . .'*

BANJO 316

Above the sound of the music the Indian was em-
phasizing the necessity for all colored people to wake up
and get together, for, he said, although Indians belonged
to the white stock according to science — the white people,
particularly the British, were treating them like black
people.

But Ray could not hear any more. The jigaway music
was pounding in his ears. The dancing and singing and
sugary laughter of the boys. It filled his head full and
poured hot lire through his veins, tingling and burning.
Such a sensual-sweet feeling. There was no resisting it.

"Pardon me," he said to the Indian, and hurried into
the rear room.

Slowly the Indian gathered up his bundle of foolscap,
methodically assorting the letters according to date.
Then he went to the partition and looked in on the boys.
Against the glass pane he looked like an ancient piece of
broken bronze, a figure from an Oriental temple leaning
among indifferent objects in the window of a dealer in
antiques.

It was dismaying to him that those boys with whom he
had just been conversing so earnestly should in a mo-
ment become forgetful of everything serious in a drunken-
like abandon of jazzing.

"Just like niggers, " he muttered, turning away. "The
same on the ships. Always monkeying and never really
serious about anything."

Yet the next day Taloufa stowed away safely for
America, leaving the Indian on the beach, making his
pathetic appeals to the English gentleman's Home Office.

"It was Taloufa bring that cargo a good luck," de-
clared Banjo. "It's the same with humans like with them
stars ovah us. Good and bad luck ones. Now Lone-
some Blue was sure hard luck. But Taloufa is a good-
luck baby."

3i7 BANJO'S AGE OF SPADES

It was indeed in every way a cargo of good luck that
the boys were handling. They were no longer "on the
beach." A wealthy shipowner from the Caribbean basin,
profiting by the exchange rate, had bought a boat, which
he was overhauling to take back to the West Indies. And
the boys were on the boat.

It was a formidable polyglot outfit. The officers rep-
resented five European nations. The crew were supposed
to be Caribbean. Malty was chosen to find and recom-
mend the men. He got his gang in first, including Den-
gel, who wished to cross the Atlantic by any means.

"Though youse French," Malty told him, "you mas-
ticate that Englishman's langwitch bettah than a lottah
bush niggers back home."

Malty also took West African boys, a "colored" South
African, a reed-like Somali lad, and another Aframerican
besides Banjo. They were all "going on the fly" and
none of them was thinking of staying with the boat after
the trip, but rather of getting to Cuba, Canada, and
the United States. Ray worked with them, but said he
was not going to sign up, as the very thought of return-
ing to the Caribbean made him jumpy.

Ray teased Banjo about going as a seaman to the West
Indies so soon after he had turned down a free trip to
the United States. He predicted that Banjo would fol-
low his nose to the States in quick time, for he would
find the islands too small and sleepy for him.

"I'm gwine along with the gang, pardner, and tha's
a different thing from going back with Goosey. This
heah is like a big picnic for all of us. If youse wise, you'll
join in with us."

The boys scraped, scrubbed, painted. They got only
twenty francs a day, although the regular wage for such
work was over thirty francs. But they were beach boys
and not union men. And the union bosses had no knowl-

BANJO 318

edge of what was going on on the little boat. There is
sometimes much free-for-all work on the docks. How-
ever, the boys did not allow their work to push them
hard. They made shift to get through it. It would be
different when they signed on. Then they would get the
union wages of British seamen.

The African Cafe, The Rendezvous Bar, The bistro-
cabaret in the Rue Coin du Reboul — all of them nightly
did well with the boys. The Ditch looked at them dif-
ferently, for they measured up to and above the "leetah"
standards.

At last the boat was shipshape and ready to sail.
The day came when the boys were called to sign on. Ray
could have had an easy place, but he would not take it
and he watched Banjo sign a little wistfully. They all
had the right, under British Seamen's Regulations, to
take part of their month's wages in advance. Each of
the boys availed himself of this, that he might buy need-
ful articles. Banjo took a full month's wages.

They cashed their cheques with a seamen's broker in
Joliette. That night they had a big celebration. But
Banjo was not with them. Nor had he used any of his
money to buy new things. He invited Ray to go with
him to a quiet little cafe in Joliette, and there he an-
nounced that he was not going to make the trip.

"And Ise gwine beat it outa this burg some convenient
time this very night, pardner. Tha's mah ace a spades
so sure as Ise a spade. You come along with me?"

Not going on the ship. . . . Beat it. . . . Come
along with me.

"But you've signed on and taken a month's wages,"
protested Ray. "You can't quit now."

"Nix and a zero for what I kain't do. Go looket
that book and you won't find mah real name no moh
than anybody is gwine find this nigger when I take mah-

3i9 BANJO'S AGE OF SPADES

self away from here. I ask you again, Is you going
with me?"

Ray did not reply, and after a silence Banjo said: "I
know youse thinking it ain't right. But we kain't afford
to choose, because we ain't born and growed up like
the choosing people. All we can do is grab our chance
every time it comes our way."

Ray's thoughts were far and away beyond the right
and wrong of the matter. He had been dreaming of
what joy it would be to go vagabonding with Banjo.
Stopping here and there, staying as long as the feeling
held in the ports where black men assembled for the
great transport lines, loafing after their labors long
enough to laugh and love and jazz and fight.

While Banjo's words brought him back to social mor-
ality, they brought him back only to the realization of
how thoroughly he was in accord with them. He had
associated too closely with the beach boys not to realize
that their loose, instinctive way of living was more
deeply related to his own self-preservation than all the
principles, or social-morality lessons with which he had
been inculcated by the wiseacres of the civilized machine.

It seemed a social wrong to him that, in a society
rooted and thriving on the principles of the "struggle for
existence" and the "survival of the fittest" a black child
should be brought up on the same code of social virtues
as the white. Especially an American black child.

A Chinese or Indian child could learn the stock vir-
tues without being spiritually harmed by them, because
he possessed his own native code from which he could
draw, compare, accept, and reject while learning. But
the Negro child was a pathetic thing, entirely cut off from
its own folk wisdom and earnestly learning the trite mor-
alisms of a society in which he was, as a child and would
be as an adult, denied any legitimate place.

BANJO 320

Ray was not of the humble tribe of humanity. But
he always felt humble when he heard the Senegalese and
other West African tribes speaking their own languages
with native warmth and feeling.

The Africans gave him a positive feeling of whole-
some contact with racial roots. They made him feel
that he was not merely an unfortunate accident of birth,
but that he belonged definitely to a race weighed, tested,
and poised in the universal scheme. They inspired him
with confidence in them. Short of extermination by the
Europeans, they were a safe people, protected by their
own indigenous culture. Even though they stood bewil-
dered before the imposing bigness of white things, ap-
parently unaware of the invaluable worth of their own,
they were naturally defended by the richness of their
fundamental racial values.

He did not feel that confidence about Aframericans
who, long-deracinated, were still rootless among phan-
toms and pale shadows and enfeebled by self-effacement
before condescending patronage, social negativism, and
miscegenation. At college in America and among the
Negro intelligentsia he had never experienced any of the
simple, natural warmth of a people believing in them-
selves, such as he had felt among the rugged poor and
socially backward blacks of his island home. The col-
ored intelligentsia lived its life "to have the white neigh-
bors think well of us," so that it could move more peace-
ably into nice "white" streets.

Only when he got down among the black and brown
working boys and girls of the country did he find some-
thing of that raw unconscious and the-devil-with-them
pride in being Negro that was his own natural birthright.
Down there the ideal skin was brown skin. Boys and
girls were proud of their brown, sealskin brown, teasing

32i BANJO'S ACE OF SPADES

brown, tantalizing brown, high-brown, low-brown, velvet
brown, chocolate brown.

There was the amusing little song they all sang:

"Black may be evil,
But Yellow is so low-down;
White is the devil,
So glad I'm teasing Brown."

Among them was never any of the hopeless, ener-
vating talk of the chances of "passing white" and the
specter of the Future that were the common topics of
the colored intelligentsia. Close association with the
Jakes and Banjoes had been like participating in a com-
mon primitive birthright.

Ray loved to be with them in constant physical con-
tact, keeping warm within. He loved their tricks of lan-
guage, loved to pick up and feel and taste new words
from their rich reservoir of niggerisms. He did not like
rotten-egg stock words among rough people any more
than he liked colorless refined phrases among nice people.
He did not even like to hear cultured people using the
conventional stock words of the uncultured and thinking
they were being free and modern. That sounded vulgar
to him.

But he admired the black boys' unconscious artistic
capacity for eliminating the rotten-dead stock words of
the proletariat and replacing them with startling new
ones. There were no dots and dashes in their conversa-
tion— nothing that could not be frankly said and there-
fore decently — no act or fact of life for which they could
not find a simple passable word. He gained from them
finer nuances of the necromancy of language and the
wisdom that any word may be right and magical in its
proper setting.

He loved their natural gusto for living down the past

BANJO 322

and lifting their kinky heads out of the hot, suffocat-
ing ashes, the shadow, the terror of real sorrow to go
on gaily grinning in the present. Never had Ray guessed
from Banjo's general manner that he had known any
deep sorrow. Yet when he heard him tell Goosey that
he had seen his only brother lynched, he was not sur-
prised, he understood, because right there he had re-
vealed the depths of his soul and the soul of his race —
the true tropical African Negro. No Victorian-long
period of featured grief and sable mourning, no me-
chanical-pale graveside face, but a luxuriant living up
from it, like the great jungles growing perennially beau-
tiful and green in the yellow blaze of the sun over the
long life-breaking tragedy of Africa.

Ray had felt buttressed by the boys with a rough
strength and sureness that gave him spiritual passion and
pride to be his human self in an inhumanly alien world.
They lived healthily far beyond the influence of the col-
ored press whose racial dope was characterized by pun-
gent "bleach-out," "kink-no-more/ ' skin-whitening, hair-
straightening, and innumerable processes for Negro
culture, most of them manufactured by white men's firms
in the cracker states. And thereby they possessed more
potential power for racial salvation than the Negro lit-
terati, whose poverty of mind and purpose showed never
any signs of enrichment, even though inflated above the
common level and given an appearance of superiority.

From these boys he could learn how to live — how to
exist as a black boy in a white world and rid his conscience
of the used-up hussy of white morality. He could not
scrap his intellectual life and be entirely like them. He
did not want or feel any urge to "go back" that way.

Tolstoy, his great master, had turned his back on the
intellect as guide to find himself in Ivan Durak. Ray
wanted to hold on to his intellectual acquirements with-

323 BANJO'S AGE OF SPADES

out losing his instinctive gifts. The black gifts of laugh-
ter and melody and simple sensuous feelings and re-
sponses.

Once when a friend gave him a letter of introduction
to a Nordic intellectual, he did not write: I think you
will like to meet this young black intellectual; but rather,
I think you might like to hear Ray laugh.

His gift! He was of course aware that whether the
educated man be white or brown or black, he cannot, if
he has more than animal desires, be irresponsibly happy
like the ignorant man who lives simply by his instincts
and appetites. Any man with an observant and con-
templative mind must be aware of that. But a black
man, even though educated, was in closer biological kin-
ship to the swell of primitive earth life. And maybe his
apparent failing under the organization of the modern
world was the real strength that preserved him from
becoming the thing that was the common white creature
of it.

Ray had found that to be educated, black and his in-
stinctive self was something of a big job to put over. In
the large cities of Europe he had often met with educated
Negroes out for a good time with heavy literature under
their arms. They toted these books to protect them-
selves from being hailed everywhere as minstrel niggers,
coons, funny monkeys for the European audience — be-
cause the general European idea of the black man is that
he is a public performer. Some of them wore hideous
parliamentary clothes as close as ever to the pattern of
the most correctly gray respectability. He had remarked
wiry students and Negroes doing clerical work wearing
glasses that made them sissy-eyed. He learned, on in-
quiry, that wearing glasses was a mark of scholarship and
respectability differentiating them from the common

BANJO 324

types. . . . (Perhaps the police would respect the
glasses.)

No getting away from the public value of clothes, even
for you, my black friend. As it was, ages before Carlyle
wrote Sartor Resartus, so it will be long ages after. And
you have reason maybe to be more rigidly formal, as the
world seems illogically critical of you since it forced
you to discard so recently your convenient fig leaf for its
breeches. This civilized society is classified and kept go-
ing by clothes and you are now brought by its power to
labour and find a place in it.

The more Ray mixed in the rude anarchy of the lives
of the black boys — loafing, singing, bumming, playing,
dancing, loving, working — and came to a realization of
how close-linked he was to them in spirit, the more he
felt that they represented more than he or the cultured
minority the irrepressible exuberance and legendary vi-
tality of the black race. And the thought kept him won-
dering how that race would fare under the ever tighten-
ing mechanical organization of modern life.

Being sensitively receptive, he had as a boy become
interested in and followed with passionate sympathy all
the great intellectual and social movements of his age.
And with the growth of international feelings and ideas
he had dreamed of the association of his race with the
social movements of the masses of civilization milling
through the civilized machine.

But traveling away from America and visiting many
countries, observing and appreciating the differences of
human groups, making contact with earthy blacks of
tropical Africa, where the great body of his race existed,
had stirred in him the fine intellectual prerogative of
doubt.

The grand mechanical march of civilization had lev-
eled the world down to the point where it seemed treason-

325 BANJO'S ACE OF SPADES

able for an advanced thinker to doubt that what was
good for one nation or people was also good for an-
other. But as he was never afraid of testing ideas, so
he was not afraid of doubting. All peoples must struggle
to live, but just as what was helpful for one man might
be injurious to another, so it might be with whole com-
munities of peoples.

For Ray happiness was the highest good, and differ-
ence the greatest charm, of life. The hand of progress
was robbing his people of many primitive and beautiful
qualities. He could not see where they would find greater
happiness under the weight of the machine even if prog-
ress became left-handed.

Many apologists of a changed and magnified machine
system doubted whether the Negro could find a decent
place in it. Some did not express their doubts openly,
for fear of "giving aid to the enemy." Ray doubted, and
openly.

Take, for example, certain Nordic philosophers, as the
world was more or less Nordic business : He did not think
the blacks would come very happily under the super-
mechanical Anglo-Saxon-controlled world society of Mr.
H. G. Wells. They might shuffle along, but without much
happiness in the world of Bernard Shaw. Perhaps they
would have their best chance in a world influenced by the
thought of a Bertrand Russell, where brakes were
clamped on the machine with a few screws loose and
some nuts fallen off. But in this great age of science
and super-invention was there any possibility of arresting
the thing unless it stopped of its own exhaustion?

"Well, what you say, pardner?" demanded Banjo.
"Why you jest sidown theah so long studying ovah noth-
ing at all ? You gwine with a man or you ain't ?"

3ANJO 3z6

"Why didn't you tell me before, so I could have signed
on like you and make a getaway mahself ?"

"Because I wasn't so certain sure a you. Youse a book
fellah and you' mind might tell you to do one thing and
them books persweahs you to do another. So I wouldn't
take no chances. And maybe it's bettah only one of us
do this thing this time. Now wese bettah acquainted,
theah's a lotta things befoh us we'll have to make to-
gether."

"It would have been a fine thing if we could have taken
Latnah along, eh?"

"Don't get soft ovah any one wimmens, pardner. Tha's
you' big weakness. A woman is a conjunction. f( Gawd
fixed her different from us in moh ways^jhan^ojie^ And
theaTiV HmTgs we can giFaway wTtTTall the time and she
just kain't. Come on, pardner. Wese got enough between
us to beat it a long ways from here."

THE END

Marseilles-Barcelona, 1927-28.

^ new York

Publishers of BOOKS and of
Harper* Magaz ine

Established ihj

Banjo, a story without a plot, main
813.5M153bC2

Library West

Date Due

MAY 1 4 2007

Date Due Slip

Date Returned

MAR 2 9 200?

>